Grover Cleveland

22nd and 24th President of the United States

### Children

Oscar Folsom Cleveland (son), Ruth Cleveland (daughter), Esther Cleveland (daughter), Marion Cleveland Amen (daughter), Richard Folsom "Dick" Cleveland (son), Francis Grover Cleveland (son)

### Parents

Richard Falley Cleveland (father)Ann Neal Cleveland (mother)

### Siblings

Rose Cleveland (sister), Susan Sophia Cleveland (sister), Ann Cleveland Hastings (sister), William Cleveland (brother), Margaret Louise Cleveland (sister), Richard Cecil Cleveland (brother), Lewis Frederick Cleveland (brother), Mary Allen Cleveland (sister)

### Education

Fayetteville Academy Clinton Liberal Academy

### Hair color

Brown

The first Democrat elected after the Civil War in 1885, our 22nd and 24th President **Grover Cleveland** was the only President to leave the White House and return for a second term four years later (1885-1889 and 1893-1897).

*The Presidency of Grover Cleveland spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Maturation Era or the Gilded Age. President Grover Cleveland represented the Democratic political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidencies.*

## Biography

One of nine children of a Presbyterian minister, Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837. He was raised in upstate New York. As a lawyer in Buffalo, he became notable for his single-minded concentration upon whatever task faced him.

At 44, he emerged into a political prominence that carried him to the White House in three years. Running as a reformer, he was elected Mayor of Buffalo in 1881, and later, Governor of New York.

Cleveland won the Presidency with the combined support of Democrats and reform Republicans, the “Mugwumps,” who disliked the record of his opponent James G. Blaine of Maine.

A bachelor, Cleveland was ill at ease at first with all the comforts of the White House. “I must go to dinner,” he wrote a friend, “but I wish it was to eat a pickled herring a Swiss cheese and a chop at Louis’ instead of the French stuff I shall find.” In June 1886 Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances Folsom; he was the only President married in the White House.

Cleveland vigorously pursued a policy barring special favors to any economic group. Vetoing a bill to appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, he wrote: “Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character. . . . ”

He also vetoed many private pension bills to Civil War veterans whose claims were fraudulent. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland vetoed it, too.

He angered the railroads by ordering an investigation of western lands they held by Government grant. He forced them to return 81,000,000 acres. He also signed the Interstate Commerce Act, the first law attempting Federal regulation of the railroads.

In December 1887 he called on Congress to reduce high protective tariffs. Told that he had given Republicans an effective issue for the campaign of 1888, he retorted, “What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?” But Cleveland was defeated in 1888; although he won a larger popular majority than the Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison, he received fewer electoral votes.

Elected again in 1892, Cleveland faced an acute depression. He dealt directly with the Treasury crisis rather than with business failures, farm mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment. He obtained repeal of the mildly inflationary Sherman Silver Purchase Act and, with the aid of Wall Street, maintained the Treasury’s gold reserve.

When railroad strikers in Chicago violated an injunction, Cleveland sent Federal troops to enforce it. “If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a post card in Chicago,” he thundered, “that card will be delivered.”

Cleveland’s blunt treatment of the railroad strikers stirred the pride of many Americans. So did the vigorous way in which he forced Great Britain to accept arbitration of a disputed boundary in Venezuela. But his policies during the depression were generally unpopular. His party deserted him and nominated William Jennings Bryan in 1896.

After leaving the White House, Cleveland lived in retirement in Princeton, New Jersey. He died in 1908.

## Personality

The character traits of President Grover Cleveland can be described as outgoing, friendly, affable, charming, elegant, emotional and compassionate. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for Grover Cleveland is an ESTJ (Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judgment). An outgoing, practical, realistic and civic-minded character with a strong belief in rules and procedures, placing a high value on competence and efficiency. Grover Cleveland Personality type: Decisive, hardworking, methodical and orderly.

## Nicknames

* "His Obstinacy"
* "Uncle Jumbo"
* "Grover the Good"
* "The Veto President"

*Meaning: The nickname of President Grover Cleveland provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the Grover Cleveland nickname "Uncle Jumbo" refers to his large size in a reference to Jumbo the elephant who had toured with P. T. Barnum's circus just before Cleveland became president.*

## Inaugurations

### Inauguration (First Presidency)

The **first inauguration of Grover Cleveland** as the 22nd president of the United States took place on Wednesday, March 4, 1885, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 25th inauguration and marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Grover Cleveland as president and the only term of Thomas A. Hendricks as vice president. Hendricks died 266 days into this term, and the office remained vacant since there was no constitutional provision which allow an intra-term vice-presidential office filling; it would be regulated by the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967.

Chief Justice Morrison Waite administered the presidential oath of office, and Cleveland held a Bible given to him at age 15 by his mother as he recited it. Cleveland's second inauguration took place eight years after the first, as his two terms in office were not consecutive. He is the only U.S. president to serve non-consecutive terms.

### Inauguration (Second Presidency)

The **second inauguration of Grover Cleveland** as the 24th president of the United States took place on Saturday, March 4, 1893, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 27th inauguration and marked the commencement of the second and final four-year term of Grover Cleveland as president and the only term of Adlai Stevenson I as vice president. Cleveland had previously been the 22nd president, and was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Chief Justice Melville Fuller administered the presidential oath of office. It snowed during the inauguration.

## Presidents who died during his Presidencies

* Ulysses S. Grant (1st presidency)
* Chester A. Arthur (1st presidency)

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that Grover Cleveland was president included the Presidential Succession Act, the dedication of Statue of Liberty (1886), the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), the Dawes Severalty Act (1887), the Panic of 1893, Chicago World's Fair (1893), the invention of the Ferris Wheel, the Haymarket riot and the Pullman's Strike (1894). His presidency also witnessed the Klondike Gold Rush, the Charleston Earthquake and the end of the Wild West.*

### **Events during the First Grover Cleveland Presidency (1885-1889)**

**The 1886 Haymarket Riot**

Summary: The Haymarket Riot occurred on May 4,1886 and was a violent confrontation between Chicago police and protesting workers that resulted in a bomb being thrown by an anarchist at a squad of police officers who were attempting to disperse the labor rally .

**The 1886 Charleston Earthquake**

Summary: The 1886 Charleston Earthquake occurred on August 31, 1886 and reached between 6.6 and 7.3 on the Richter scale. The Charleston Earthquake resulted in the deaths of 100 people who were crushed to death or burnt in the numerous fires that broke out. More than 2000 buildings were damaged or destroyed leaving over 25,000 people homeless.

**The 1887 Dawes Severalty Act**

Summary of the Dawes Severalty Act: The Dawes Severalty Act, aka the General Allotment Act, was passed by Grover Cleveland on February, 8, 1887 to protect the property rights of Native American Indians. However the provisions of the Dawes Severalty Act were organized in such a way that Native American tribe members would be assimilated and integrated into American society and culture.

**The 1887 Interstate Commerce Act**

Summary: The Granger Movement,  a coalition of U.S. farmers, was founded in 1867 by Oliver Kelley to promote the social needs of farmers by reducing isolation, addressing economic issues and advancing new methods of agriculture. The Granger Movement gained considerable political power and backed the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act which was passed on February 4, 1887 curb the monopolies of railroad companies and address the cost of freight-shipping on the railroads.

**The Statue of Liberty**

Summary: The 300ft Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886 attended by President Grover Cleveland, as a symbol of friendship between France and the United States. The sculptor and designer was Frederick Auguste Bartholdi who hired Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel as the initial internal designer of the structure.

### **Events during the Second Grover Cleveland Presidency (1893-1897)**

**The Panic of 1893**

Summary: The second term in office for Grover Cleveland began with the Panic of 1893 which led to a four year economic depression with 20% unemployment and resulted in civil unrest, demonstrations and strikes.

**The 1893 Chicago World's Fair**

Summary: The wonders of the World's Colombian Exposition aka Chicago World's Fair was held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World in 1492. Chicago World's Fair was opened on May 1, 1893 by President Grover Cleveland and provided exhibitions, music, entertainments and food for 27 million visitors over a period of six months until it closed on October 30, 1893 (Columbus Day).

**The Ferris Wheel Invention**

Summary: The 264ft tall Ferris Wheel Invention was the greatest attraction at the Chicago World's Fair.

**The 1894 Pullman Strike**

Summary: The Pullman Strike, led by Eugene V. Debs,  began in Chicago on May 11, 1894 and led a widespread railroad strike across the nation due to the impact of the Panic of 1893. President Grover Cleveland authorized the use of US troops, who used harsh methods to suppress the strikers,  and the Pullman strike was broken by July 17, 1894.

**The 1895 Atlanta Compromise**

Summary: The Atlanta Compromise was was the name given to a speech made by Booker T. Washington at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia on September 18, 1895. The speech reflected the progress since emancipation and about racial cooperation.

**The 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson Case**

Summary: The Plessy vs. Ferguson Case was an important legal case in which the Supreme Court ruled on on May 18, 1896 that "separate but equal" facilities satisfied the guarantees of 14th Amendment, thereby giving legal sanction to the Jim Crow segregation laws.

**The 1896 Klondike Gold Rush in Alaska**

Summary: The Klondike Gold Rush began on August 16, 1896 when George Carmack discovered Klondike gold in Rabbit (Bonanza) Creek, part of the Klondike River, a tributary of the Yukon River in Alaska.

**The End of the Wild West**

Summary: The end of the Wild West roughly coincided with the end of Grover Cleveland's second term in office.

## Post Presidencies

### Election of 1888

The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison, the former U.S. Senator from Indiana for president and Levi P. Morton of New York for vice president. Cleveland was renominated at the Democratic convention in St. Louis. Following Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks' death in 1885, the Democrats chose Allen G. Thurman of Ohio to be Cleveland's new running mate.

The Republicans gained the upper hand in the campaign, as Cleveland's campaign was poorly managed by Calvin S. Brice and William H. Barnum, whereas Harrison had engaged more aggressive fundraisers and tacticians in Matt Quay and John Wanamaker. The Republicans campaigned heavily on the tariff issue, turning out protectionist voters in the important industrial states of the North. Further, the Democrats in New York were divided over the gubernatorial candidacy of David B. Hill, weakening Cleveland's support in that swing state. A letter from the British ambassador supporting Cleveland caused a scandal that cost Cleveland votes in New York.

As in 1884, the election focused on the swing states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But unlike that year, when Cleveland had triumphed in all four, in 1888 he won only two, losing his home state of New York by 14,373 votes. Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote – 48.6 percent vs. 47.8 percent for Harrison – but Harrison won the Electoral College vote easily, 233–168. The Republicans won Indiana, largely as the result of a fraudulent voting practice known as Blocks of Five. Cleveland continued his duties diligently until the end of the term and began to look forward to returning to private life.

### Private citizen for four years

As Frances Cleveland left the White House, she told a staff member, "Now, Jerry, I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again." When asked when she would return, she responded, "We are coming back four years from today." In the meantime, the Clevelands moved to New York City, where Cleveland took a position with the law firm of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy, and MacVeigh. This affiliation was more of an office-sharing arrangement, though quite compatible. Cleveland's law practice brought only a moderate income, perhaps because Cleveland spent considerable time at the couple's vacation home Gray Gables at Buzzard Bay, where fishing became his obsession. While they lived in New York, the Clevelands' first child, Ruth, was born in 1891.

The Harrison administration worked with Congress to pass the McKinley Tariff, an aggressively protectionist measure, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which increased money backed by silver; these were among policies Cleveland deplored as dangerous to the nation's financial health. At first he refrained from criticizing his successor, but by 1891 Cleveland felt compelled to speak out, addressing his concerns in an open letter to a meeting of reformers in New York. The "silver letter" thrust Cleveland's name back into the spotlight just as the 1892 election was approaching.

### 1896 election and retirement

Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a free-silver platform. Cleveland silently supported the Gold Democrats' third-party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard, limit government, and oppose high tariffs, but he declined their nomination for a third term. The party won only 100,000 votes in the general election, and William McKinley, the Republican nominee, triumphed easily over Bryan. Agrarians nominated Bryan again in 1900. In 1904, the conservatives, with Cleveland's support, regained control of the Democratic Party and nominated Alton B. Parker.

After leaving the White House on March 4, 1897, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, in Princeton, New Jersey. For a time, he was a trustee of Princeton University, and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred the dean Andrew Fleming West's plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the university. Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902. Cleveland still made his views known in political matters. In a 1905 article in *The Ladies Home Journal*, Cleveland weighed in on the women's suffrage movement, writing that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."

In 1906, a group of New Jersey Democrats promoted Cleveland as a possible candidate for the United States Senate. The incumbent, John F. Dryden, was not seeking re-election, and some Democrats felt that the former president could attract the votes of some disaffected Republican legislators who might be drawn to Cleveland's statesmanship and conservatism.

## Death

Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907 he fell seriously ill. In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence. His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right." He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.

## Facts and trivia

* Grover Cleveland is the only American President to be elected to two non-consecutive terms in office. Therefore, he is counted twice as the 22nd and 24th President of the United States.
* Cleveland's father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister who was originally from Connecticut. His mother was from Baltimore and was the daughter of a bookseller.
* On his father's side, Cleveland was descended from English ancestors, the first of the family having emigrated to Massachusetts from Cleveland, England, in 1635. His father's maternal grandfather, Richard Falley Jr., fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was the son of an immigrant from Guernsey. On his mother's side, Cleveland was descended from Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers from Philadelphia.
* Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named.
* Cleveland, the fifth of nine children, was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time. However, he never used his full name and was simply known as Grover in his adult life.
* In 1850, Cleveland's father Richard moved his family to Clinton, New York, to work as district secretary for the American Home Missionary Society. Despite his father's dedication to his missionary work, his income was insufficient for the large family. Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school and place him in a two-year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville. The experience was valuable and brief, and the living conditions quite austere. Grover returned to Clinton and his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract.
* In 1853, when missionary work began to take a toll on the health of Cleveland's father, he took an assignment in Holland Patent, New York (near Utica) and moved his family again. Shortly after, he died from a gastric ulcer. The younger Cleveland was said to have learned about his father's death from a boy selling newspapers.
* Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Liberal Academy. After his father died in 1853, he again left school to help support his family. Later that year, Cleveland's brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City, and William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher.
* After declining a full scholarship to becoming a minister, Cleveland headed west, where he took an interest in law and eventually started his own practice. His fascination of law led him to become Sheriff of New York State, where he earned the equivalent of $730,000 by today's standards.
* In 1881, Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo and later, governor of New York. He was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to business, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era.
* Cleveland won praise for his honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. He fought political corruption, patronage, and bossism.
* As a reformer, Cleveland had such prestige that the like-minded wing of the Republican Party, called "Mugwumps", largely bolted the GOP presidential ticket and swung to his support in the 1884 election.
* In his first term in office, Cleveland sought a summer house to escape the heat and smells of Washington, D.C., near enough the capital. He secretly bought a farmhouse, Oak View (or Oak Hill), in a rural upland part of the District of Columbia, in 1886, and remodeled it into a Queen Anne style summer estate. He sold Oak View upon losing his bid for re-election in 1888. Not long thereafter, suburban residential development reached the area, which came to be known as Oak View, and then Cleveland Heights, and eventually Cleveland Park. The Clevelands are depicted in local murals.
* Cleveland is the only Democrat elected to the presidency between 1860 and 1912.
* Weighing 260 Ibs, Cleveland is the second-heaviest President after William Howard Taft.
* Soon after taking office in 1885, Cleveland was faced with the task of filling all the government jobs for which the president had the power of appointment. These jobs were typically filled under the spoils system, but Cleveland announced that he would not fire any Republican who was doing his job well, and would not appoint anyone solely on the basis of party service. He also used his appointment powers to reduce the number of federal employees, as many departments had become bloated with political time-servers.
* Later in his term, as his fellow Democrats chafed at being excluded from the spoils, Cleveland began to replace more of the partisan Republican officeholders with Democrats; this was especially the case with policymaking positions. While some of his decisions were influenced by party concerns, more of Cleveland's appointments were decided by merit alone than was the case in his predecessors' administrations.
* Cleveland entered his first presidency as a bachelor, but two years later, he married Frances Folsom, becoming the only president to have a wedding in the White House. This marriage was unusual because Cleveland was the executor of Oscar Folsom's estate and had supervised Frances's upbringing after her father's death; nevertheless, the public took no exception to the match. At 21 years old, Frances was 27 years Grover's junior, and the youngest First Lady in American History.
* Cleveland was defeated in the 1888 U.S. Presidential Election by Indiana Senator Benjamin Harrison.
* As in 1884, the election focused on the swing states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But unlike that year, when Cleveland had triumphed in all four, in 1888 he won only two, losing his home state of New York by 14,373 votes. Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote – 48.6 percent vs. 47.8 percent for Harrison – but Harrison won the Electoral College vote easily, 233–168. The Republicans won Indiana, largely as the result of a fraudulent voting practice known as Blocks of Five. Cleveland continued his duties diligently until the end of the term and began to look forward to returning to private life.
* As Frances Cleveland left the White House, she told a staff member, "Now, Jerry, I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again." When asked when she would return, she responded, "We are coming back four years from today." In the meantime, the Clevelands moved to New York City, where Cleveland took a position with the law firm of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy, and MacVeigh.
* The Republicans re-nominated President Harrison, making the 1892 election a rematch of the one four years earlier. Unlike the turbulent and controversial elections of 1876, 1884, and 1888, the 1892 election was, according to Cleveland biographer Allan Nevins, "the cleanest, quietest, and most creditable in the memory of the post-war generation", in part because Harrison's wife, Caroline, was dying of tuberculosis. Harrison did not personally campaign at all. Following Caroline Harrison's death on October 25, two weeks before the national election, Cleveland and all of the other candidates stopped campaigning, thus making Election Day a somber and quiet event for the whole country as well as the candidates.
* At the campaign's end, many Populists and labor supporters endorsed Cleveland after an attempt by the Carnegie Corporation to break the union during the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh and after a similar conflict between big business and labor at the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co. The final result was a victory for Cleveland by wide margins in both the popular and electoral votes, and it was Cleveland's third consecutive popular vote plurality.
* As his second administration began, disaster hit the nation when the Panic of 1893 produced a severe national depression. It ruined his Democratic Party, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896. The result was a political realignment that ended the Third Party System and launched the Fourth Party System and the Progressive Era.
* Cleveland was a formidable policymaker, and he also drew corresponding criticism. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions nationwide in addition to the party in Illinois; his support of the gold standard and opposition to Free Silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democratic Party.
* In 1895 Cleveland became the first U.S. president who was filmed.
* Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies gained control of the Democratic party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a Silver Platform. Cleveland silently supported the Gold Democrats' third-party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard, limit government and oppose high tariffs, but he declined their nomination for a third term.
* After leaving the White House on March 4, 1897, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, in Princeton, New Jersey. For a time he was a trustee of Princeton University, and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred Dean West's plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the university.
* Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902.
* In 1906, a group of New Jersey Democrats promoted Cleveland as a possible candidate for the United States Senate. The incumbent, John F. Dryden, was not seeking re-election, and some Democrats felt that the former president could attract the votes of some disaffected Republican legislators who might be drawn to Cleveland's statesmanship and conservatism.
* Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907 he fell seriously ill. In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence. His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right." He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.
* Grover Cleveland Hall at Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York is named after Cleveland. Cleveland Hall houses the offices of the college president, vice presidents, and other administrative functions and student services. Cleveland was a member of the first board of directors of the then Buffalo Normal School. Grover Cleveland Middle School in his birthplace, Caldwell, New Jersey, was named for him, as is Grover Cleveland High School in Buffalo, New York, and the town of Cleveland, Mississippi. Mount Cleveland, a volcano in Alaska, is also named after him.
* The first U.S. postage stamp to honor Cleveland appeared in 1923. This twelve-cent issue accompanied a thirteen-cent stamp in the same definitive series that depicted his old rival, Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's only two subsequent stamp appearances have been in issues devoted to the full roster of U.S. Presidents, released, respectively, in 1938 and 1986.
* Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill of series 1928 and series 1934. He also appeared on the first few issues of the $20 Federal Reserve Notes from 1914. Since he was both the 22nd and 24th president, he was featured on two separate dollar coins released in 2012 as part of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.
* In 2013, Cleveland was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
* Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. Even so, his reputation for probity and good character survived the troubles of his second term. Biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "[I]n Grover Cleveland, the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities. He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not."
* By the end of his second term, public perception showed him to be one of the most unpopular U.S. presidents, and he was by then rejected even by most Democrats. Today, Cleveland is considered by most historians to have been a successful leader, and has been praised for honesty, integrity, adherence to his morals and defying party boundaries, and effective leadership.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover\_Cleveland
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/grover-cleveland/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/grover-cleveland.htm
* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cleveland-110