Grover Cleveland Demonstrates a Washingtonian Vision of the Presidency

When Cleveland took office in 1885, one world was ending and a new one was emerging. The signs were everywhere: a complete, national railroad grid was being built, cities were being wired for electrity, and the telephone system was starting to be installed. In the political arena, Cleveland bridged the time between the old and the new – from when Congress dominated national affairs to the modern era when the Executive branch would do so.

Cleveland was elected by pledging to bring integrity to government, and saw two aspects of this in his role as president. One was that of a righteous watchdog making sure other politicians stayed honest. The second was to conduct himself personally in such a way as to set an example of integrity, making his acts match his words. His White House was a place not of ostentation, lavish living, arrogance, or self-importance, nor where the well-connected could rely on their interests being served, but one where true public service and disinterested honesty were foremost. He was self-reliant to a remarkable degree, conducting the presidency with one telephone and sometimes answering the door himself. The people loved him for it.

To Cleveland, the essence of presidential integrity was that the president must consider himself just an average citizen selected for a short time to manage the people’s affairs. To believe otherwise, to consider that he was an important person deserving special treatment (and by extension that his friends and relatives were special people deserving special attention), would be to betray the hopes of the nation, as it would lead to a governing oligarchy consisting of the powerful and the wealthy. He would have been scandalized by the presidency of the modern era. Here is a succinct statement of his philosophy.

Grover Cleveland Autograph Letter Signed in the years between his two terms, three pages 8vo, Buzzard’s Bay, Mass., June 14, 1891, to Julius Strause, who had apparently been referred to Cleveland by the noted author Hamlin Garland. “Mr. Garland has sent to me your letter of June 3d in which you request of him a letter or other writing of mine. He suggests that I furnish something that will answer your purpose. I can hardly imagine that my efforts in this direction will be of any great value to you and yet I am certainly willing to accede to your request. I suppose your desire arises from the fact that I have occupied the office of President. It is a great and profoundly responsible office. But it seems to me that, as Americans, we ought to regard it merely as a designation of one of our number to do for us certain work under our government by the people; and that when this work is done should expect the person we have thus designated, to resume his place among his fellow citizens- no wiser and not particularly better than the rest of our people, by reason of his having occupied the position to which they called him.”

This is by far the finest statement on the presidency by a president that we have ever seen, or, in fact, that could be ever made.