As president of the United States I was of the first American Congress in Washington DC that with God help our two countries shall continue to live side by side in peace and Gman paron The Voice the first preserved recording of the man in the White House the time like the recording
A curious mix of two eras of the way things were once done and the way they would be done from now on the speaker a man with a foot in both worlds it was the last of the Gilded Age a time of extremes of wealth and poverty backed by the Smoke Filled
Room but the planes would soon ring out with the the voice of the Prairie populist and the Seas would bend before a surging American Naval power it was raining too the day his grandfather took the same oath one that would make Benjamin Harrison the 23rd President of
The United States his rival the ousted and no longer incumbent Grover Cleveland politely held an umbrella over his head as Benjamin Harrison prepared to give his inaugural address I do not Harrison said mistrust the future Harrison is very much aware of these times that are changing that are
Going to lead to a very different America the president who starts to bring America perhaps slowly but onto the world stage is a power that is going to be extending politics was you know some way it was a contact sport it’s about winning winning winning does he not
Understand and how many men came so close to the penitentiary to get him Elected he was not a glad-hander one Senator said it was like talking to a Hitching Post I think that is one of the things about Harrison that continues to make him a mystery to most but on the inside there’s a fire that burns and he would take both fists and make his
Points like this violence in the Reconstruction South means murder Harrison made a vow that he would not purchase the presidency by a compact of Silence on the Voting Rights issue Harrison certainly pushed it further than it had ever gone before in his refusal to sort of Simply
Cave to party bosses I think he struck a blow for Independence of the executive you can make enemies and it’s just extraordinary when you look at his record and his emphasis on doing what was right and the right way even at significant personal cost I think it is time to rethink the
Place of Benjamin Harrison in the evolution of the Presidency a president at the crossroads has made possible through a generous Grant from the Indiana office of Tourism development Northbend Ohio sometime after 1833 Benjamin Harris was born in this place in that year a farmer’s son schooled in a log cabin but today it’s the family Orchard that will teach him a
Lesson that will shape all the days of his life I remember pressing through an alder Thicket I saw sitting in the midst a colored man with the frightened look of a fugitive attempting to satisfy his hunger with some walnuts he noticed my Approach with a fierce startled look to see whether I
Was likely to betray him I was frightened myself and left him in some trepidation but I kept his secret this is Christmas Eve some to decades later the boy is now a man 500 mil away from his home and his family and the dear little ones are nestling
Their little heads on the pillow filled with high expectations of what Santa Claus will bring them and papa is not there he was now in the thick of the Atlantic campaign designed by the armies of the north to strike a death blow to the Civil War that has Pit Brother
Against brother and to bring freedom to Slaves like the one whose secret he once held so close that he was there at all was unexpected Benjamin Harrison was now living in Indianapolis and had become a Protegé of the state’s governor Oliver P Morton a man who likes to keep his friends
Close close too is Morton with President Abraham lincol and the president has called for more troops when his State’s response proves lukewarm Morton decides to put some heat to it he asks Harrison to help recruit volunteers but cautions that as Indiana court reporter he is too
Valuable to go himself it is not likely that he will Harrison and his wife Caroline are still reeling from the death of a baby girl their third child torn between family and Duty he makes a decision Harrison’s feeling is I can’t recruit other soldiers or other men to
Go serve in the field without going myself I’m proud to be the wife of Benjamin Harrison the lawyer I shall be prouder still to be the wife of Harrison the soldier don’t worry about me I can take care of myself and the children Carol line Harrison for over a year an
Inexperienced Colonel Harrison and his equally inexperienced 70th Indiana regiment roam the Kentucky Countryside protecting Rail lines at night Harrison studies tactics by day he drills his volunteers many of them chafe under his strict discipline they nickname the 5’6 Harrison little Ben he couldn’t dominate people by his physical presence but he
Did have the power of his office he he was the leader of his regiment and he never forgot that and he never uh compromised on that still there are times when Harrison feels completely isolated General Payne gave a party though frequently urged to dance especially by a very Buxom and pretty
Wife of one of our surgeons I persistently declined I I have lost all faculty of making myself agreeable in general society when war finally comes to the 70th Indiana they’re ready at raka Georgia Harrison and his men capture a battery of four Cannon fighting through devastating sniper fire which is as
Harrison later writes provokingly accurate for an hour and a half the enemy shells and grapes fell like hail two of my men had their heads torn off close down to the shoulder he’s very open with her throughout the letters not only about what they’re doing but also how he feels
That that what his duty is and how God has influenced his his participation in the war sometimes all of that comes within the same letter our surgeons got separated from us I stripped my arms to dress the men’s wounds myself I pulled out of one poor fellow’s arm a splinter
5 in long and as thick as my three fingers in one occasion he writes the farewell letter you know just in case something happens here’s my brief note and at the bottom of the page well okay so what happened yesterday was so he he he manages to get through at Peach Tree
Creek Harrison acts on his own to close a gap in the union lines Harrison put his Spurs to his horse and dashed up theill Hill in front of his Brigade they cheering followed rapidly up the hill LT Miller by God Harrison I’ll make you a brigadier general for this fight General fighting Joe
Hooker so on January 23rd 1865 President Lincoln nominates Harrison for the rank of Brigadier General 4 months later Lincoln is filled by an Assassin’s bullet you know Carrie that I am pretty ugly sometimes and have often made you unhappy for all of which I am very
Penitent but when the Civil War is Over I think we shall live very lovingly together provided you don’t keep too many canaries mocking birds and cats with a heart immensely full of love for you my dear Chosen One your husband born Caroline levinia Scott she was proof that Opposites Attract when he was
15 Benjamin left North Bend to enroll at Farmers College in Cincinnati it was there that he met John W Scott a professor and his daughter the one with the dancing brown eyes and he did find reasons to go to Professor Scott’s Home on a frequent basis and uh
Really took a shine to this to this young woman who was just the opposite of him in personality when John Scott decided to move back to Oxford and take his daughter with him Benjamin transferred to Miami University which just happened to also be in Oxford there he studied
Ethics and literature and pledged F Delta Theta fraternity as one of its earliest members but his interest soon focused on Law and religion with either career the young Harrison reasoned one could serve mankind well after all a devout Presbyterian faith devoted to service had been a Cornerstone of his life since
Childhood mother was very very influential in in teaching him a religious Faith his mother died when he was in college this was a a real blow to Young Ben Harrison and it was in college that he made his commitment to Christ when he was courting his wife all his
College friends called him the pious Moonlight dude apparently piety and passion did mix for the dude had won Caroline’s heart yet Harrison was concerned he felt that her many duties at the school were taking a toll on her fragile Health his solution been proposed and he uh said you know we’ve
Really got to to do this and because I if I’m going to save you my present design is to migrate to Chicago in the spring where I will be able to obtain immediate admission to the bar an energetic and patient pursuit of my profession will ensure success in
A word I pledge my best efforts for her happiness Benjamin if you conclude to settle in Indianapolis you may very soon get into a good practice most of the members of the bar here are moral and some of them Pious men but none of them are very talented your cousin William
Sheets of such casual remarks are weighty decisions made with her father presiding Carrie and Ben tied the knot they shipped everything they owned in a single box for 91 cents and relocated to the hoer capital both were just 20 years old Harrison’s legal career though while energetic as promised required more patience than
Expected yeah he is struggling he was uh allowed to assist the County prosecutor in a burglary case and he got the chance to give the summary argument he had written out a an elaborate uh summation that he was going to make to the jury but poor lighting in the courtroom meant
That U he couldn’t actually see what he had written of such serendipitous moments are careers also made for Harrison won the case from then on he would speak from the heart and the head but not a written text in September 1868 a young boy hting cows along the White River spotted a man
And a woman resting by a fire along the water’s edge turns out they weren’t River gazing at all his head was half blown off by a shotgun his wife’s body was burned from the waist down probably from the Flash from the pistol shot she took to the Head these were outwardly
Respectable middle class people they weren’t the kind of people who were supposed to end up dead as the funeral procession passed a Grocer’s wife stood in Curious observance when asked why Nancy Clem replied no reason she didn’t know them but she did know them for Jacob and
Nancy Jane young were her Partners in a lone sharking scheme she also knew the man who was now one of the nation’s upand cominging attorneys and who would prosecute her for their murder turns out he was her neighbor Benjamin Harrison the trial was a national sensation some 250 Witnesses Harrison
Shreds Alibi after Alibi he turns his emotional pleas on and off at will Saving his most impassion speech to denounce Nancy CLM persuading her 15-year-old niece to commit purgery and he said I would rather walk behind my child’s coffin than have my child’s Eternal Soul threatened by presenting these awful
Lies Nancy Clem was convicted but she appealed and appealed and appealed again she escaped The Gallows but served 4 years on a perjury conviction but for Benjamin Harrison his skills as a cool technician had been affirmed and he would need that cool to deal with personal tragedy in 1878 Harrison’s father died
In his sleep in the Gilded Age grave robbing and cadav dissecting often went hand inand so the family built a secure brick Vault and hired a Watchman but on the day of the funeral it was discovered that an adjoining plot had been Disturbed an investigation LED Harrison’s brother John to the Ohio
Medical College and there he discovered a hooded body hanging from a rope beneath a trap door to his astonishment when the hood came off it’s father upon hearing the news it was noted that this was possibly the only time Benjamin Harrison uttered a profanity oh what’s the matter with
Harrison he’s all right there can be no comparison he’s all right Ben’s a man who bravely went for his it is 1888 and the man who once was one of the country’s Premier attorneys is now its preeminent Republican heading his party’s ticket for president Benjamin Harrison’s nomination is no surprise but
It is a compromise the nominee four years earlier and the presumptive favorite James G Blaine had withdrawn his name from consideration or had he you really can’t talk about Harrison without talking about James G Blaine James G Blaine was the dominant political figure in the Republican party
Of that era he wanted desperately to be president of the United States also always scheming always scheming and so you could never tell what his motivation was Blain himself in his heart of hearts really wanted the convention to come to him Blain’s men said let’s give our vote
To to ex candidate for a while and show that he’s not strong enough to win and then let’s give our votes to Y candidate for a while and show that he’s not strong enough and then we’ll have oh my gosh a deadlock convention who can help us break this deadlock none other than
James G Blaine well the first person they chose for that dubious honor of this strategy was Benjamin Harrison this was Harrison’s thirdd foray into elected office in many ways his doing so was inevitable Benjamin Harrison comes from a distinguished American political family his great grandfather Benjamin
Harrison same name was a signer of the Declaration of Independence a governor of Virginia his grandfather was William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison was a battlefield Legend he had served his country with Valor in the War of 1812 as Indiana territorial Governor he removed the Native American Enclave of profits
Town and pursued its charismatic founder to kumsa into Canada to take away both his dreams of a United Indian Confederacy and his life as old typa Cano he parlayed that military Fame to become the ninth president of the United States but his time at office was short-lived Washington DC dumped its
Sewage in a marsh just blocks from its water supply William Henry Harrison died of sepsis just one month into to his term Benjamin Harrison was only 7 years old at the time but comparisons to his grandfather would follow him the rest of his political life Harrison was really reluctant to piggyback on his
Grandfather’s success and said you know uh I’m I’m not the grandson of anyone but if Harrison was distancing himself from his lineage he could not Escape his Destiny his old Ally now Senator ol P Morton had grown to see his increasing popularity as a threat and Harrison’s political career was
Stalled then fate stepped in in the form of the 1876 Republican nominee for governor godf orth had stepped down a newspaper accused orth of shaking down investors in Venezuelan bonds while he was in Congress and Harrison was asked to replace him he is introduced as young tip Republican parades
Featured Veterans of Tippy Canoe uh Veterans of his grandfathers who had voted for his grandfather but those same parades also featured images banners about the Hamburg massacre in the summer of 1876 in South Carolina during a July 4th parade there had been a conflict in the street between African-Americans who were parading and
And whites and Republicans featured this in 1876 to try and remind Northern voters that the gains of the Civil War were in danger of being raised Harrison’s opponent in the race is Democrat James D blue jeans Williams Williams was a politician and farmer and wore his blue denims to political
Rallies and speeches although as he grew more prosperous he was known to line the inside of his genes with silk Harrison’s own past was as rural as rural could be growing up on a farm that was never prosperous and a father who risked Financial ruin to send him to college
Like Williams he had put those days behind him but for the partisan press his Prosperity is fod for the attack he’s accused of being a Kid Glove Aristocrat when he starts running for office in his own right Harrison dresses in Broadway fashion with his hair parted
In the middle and his beard trimmed like a row of tree box the New York Sentinel the rural Gambit works but just barely Williams eeks out a 5,000 vote win out of over 400,000 ballots cast the Republican press wonders of Williams family will attend his inaugural ball Barefoot but Harrison has bigger
Political fish to fry in 1880 the death of Oliver Morton leaves a vacan in the United States Senate and Harrison is appointed by the state legislature he advocates for a protective tariff and using the money raised for infrastructure spending education for the children of freed slaves and
Supporting the heroes who save the union but to the Democrats Union veterans equal Republican votes President Cleveland earns the title of veto King over half the 400 bills he turns down are for pensions and Harrison holds each veto tipped with poisoned arrows but after one term Harrison is out Democrats
Have retaken control of the state legislature he bitterly blames his loss on Jerry Mandarin Benjamin Harrison did get smacked down from time to time like most politicians he won and he lost and he lost several times the environment in which he rose to power was a very challenging very competitive very
Difficult environment back at the republ repan convention Blaine has been outmaneuvered by Harrison’s political team which includes former Indiana attorney general Lewis mishner and John Wanamaker a merchant considered to be a Pioneer in the new field of marketing Harrison wins on the eighth ballot to take on incumbent Grover
Cleveland he was in his Law Office in Indianapolis mner sent him a telegram that said you are put in command and Harrison nearly fainted he went home up North Delaware W Street to tell his wife Caroline that he had won the nomination and before he got there he
Realized she knows because there a huge crowd out front of his house taking off chunks of the picket fence for his running mate Harrison chooses New Yorker Levi P Morton Harrison will need the Empire State if he’s to win in a country with very well-defined battle lines the solid
South versus a a uh almost solid Republican North and in the two two doubtful states that were most important New York and Indiana um that’s where the real uh nitty-gritty fighting went on the Democrats have designated Grover Cleveland as a child of Destiny The Herald wishes to Warn its Democratic
Friends that we have a greater claim the scriptural significance of the word Benjamin is the chosen one Levi the elect we don’t believe that the Democracy will have the tarity to go back on the scriptures Indianapolis Herald this was Party politics with an emphasis on party polling places with a
Sight of parades and picnics with a shot of whiskey thrown in there was passion too as voter turnout nationally hovered around 80% you didn’t need to know how to read to vote you were just provided with a colored ballot and dropped it into a box as for the campaign itself
Less was more at that time presidential candidates really didn’t go out on the stump in a Barnstorm around the country that wasn’t seen as a dignified it’s called the front porch campaign he doesn’t have to go anywhere they come to him and he speaks to them they took
Specific groups to come to see him that he might talk to them about a particular issue that they were interested in he had his own stenographer take down what he said then you give it to the wire services this is a major step in in the creation of modern campaigning and what
Better place than the crossroads of America to bring people together than Indianapolis and I think that’s the the Real Genius behind it later on speeches and welcoming ceremonies were organized at University Park in Indianapolis they had over 300,000 people come and listen to Benjamin Harrison over 80 speeches starting right
Here from their front door Caroline participated in the campaign putting people up at at night uh dignitaries coming to town things got pretty tattered let’s say in the house they’re surrounding the house they’re trampling the grass they take pickets from the fen of souvenirs it’s the white house or the
Poor house for us Caroline Harrison the big issue in the 1880 election was the Tariff the Democrats wanted the Tariff lowered to the lowest level possible sort of moving toward free trade this was pure gold for the Republican campaigners they said basically what you would have if if you
Took uh Grover Cleveland’s ideas is you’d have people out of work uh we’d have people’s wages uh pushed down to the level of the popper labor of Europe and that kind of thing and that resonated with people and Harrison hammered on that over and over again in the
Campaign I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or shapes it into a garment will starve in the process but what would a Gilded Age campaign B without a little mudslinging and for Cleveland’s people what better Club to use than some
Grandfathering his grandfather’s hat is too big for his head but Ben tries it on just the same but it don’t fit in even a little bit on Benjamin Harrison’s Brain not to be outdone partisan tunesmiths reached way back calling Cleveland a coward and a Southern sympathizer and dredging up an old paternity suit Ben left his home his wife and child to serve up in the Battleground while Grover Cleveland stayed behind to sew his Wild Oats all
Around so what’s the matter with Harrison hey all right nine different parties were represented on the ballot including the Equal Rights party Belville Lockwood their nominee was the first woman to run not as an independent but at the top of a party ticket women could run but they
Could not vote as the election Drew near it was Harrison’s home state that could be the making or breaking point it was a great scandal in 1888 because one of the Republican leaders a man named Dudley from Indiana sent a letter perhaps real to the Republican workers in Indiana
Telling them to divide the floaters those who were maybe not going to vote Republican or vote at all divide the floaters into blocks of five and then assign one leader over that block to make sure that they voted that they got their money for voting for Harrison and
That they did in fact vote for Harrison Harrison made no uh excuse for Dudley he he uh in fact he never spoke to him again he waited up and everyone was getting nervous and frantic and looking at all the results he waited for Indiana
To come in he said ah I have my native state and then he went to bed and he said well I figured if I were a president I would need a good night sleep and if I weren’t then what did it matter when the dust settled the north
South split played out exactly as expected but the swing States all broke Harrison’s way he took the Electoral College 238 to 168 he won New York he won Indiana ironically he did not win his home city of Indianapolis when Harrison gets elected he thanks Divine Providence he is
Grateful to Divine Providence for his election does he not understand how many men came close to the penitentiary to get him elected Matthew Quay at one moment as he’s about to head for the train station with his family he went into his library and looked around
And and just sort of Tears wed up in his eyes and was sort of overcome by the moment wondering whether he would ever come back wondering what lay ahead to the music of the Marine Corps band conducted by John Philip Souza president Harrison descended the long stairway into the inaugural ball as his
Country’s Centennial president taking Office 100 years after George Washington the new century brought with with it a new agenda Harrison quietly begins to set in motion a vision for the country that he had been developing since his time as a senator he had the tools both houses of Congress were in Republican
Hands he had a powerful Ally Speaker of the House Thomas Reed who often created his own procedural rules and was called AAR and he had the funds the government was running a surplus but hold on said the powers at B first the president had to deal with the Spoils of
War party patronage is really important people who work for the election of a of members of a party um they expect to be repaid with jobs people would wait outside the president’s office in Lines by the hundreds looking for jobs a form letter merely to be signed dear sir I
Appreciate the kindly feeling of Senator Quay and his colleagues of the Pennsylvania delegation in the event of my election to the president presidency I shall regard the state of Pennsylvania as entitled to representation in my cabinet very truly yours and Harrison’s response to this impertinent request I said
No I think we have too many people in politics who are good at talking to people in small groups we need people who are bad at that and he had that gift George republican from Massachusetts refused to name which Western Senator said this if Harris were
To address an audience of 10,000 men he would capture them all but if each one of them were presented to him in private he would make him his enemy I do sometimes feel like a hunted animal as my walks and drives and even my meals are taken with those who are wanting
Something patronage was not the only burdensome custom of the days politics a turn of the century president was obliged to defer to Congress but Harrison finds that unacceptable I think Harrison’s attempts to woo members of Congress is relatively new at this time he didn’t sit back and um you know let
People in Congress dictate matters he was pushing always pushing persuasion often took the form of dinners at the White House the kitchen served up meals with green turtle soup or roast duck while the president offered a dish of arm twisting as dessert he wanted on the legislation that Grover Cleveland had
Been so willing to lay to waste with his veto pen the 1890 Pension Act enables elderly veterans widows mothers with no male bread winner who had a son in the Union Army children whose fathers have died to live without being reduced to papism you can say that the Harrison
Administration made great strides in creating kind of safety net that we take for granted today but if Democrats balked at what they saw were attempts to buy a lifelong Republican Coalition they dug in over the issue of trade Harrison promised High wages they saw higher prices without a single Democratic vote
Reed wrangles a bill sponsored by Ohio representative William McKinley through the house the McKinley Tariff raised rates quite High uh lowered some but it also included a provision for what was called reciprocity that is it empowered the president to negotiate with foreign powers for trade deals that would
Essentially open up markets primarily in Latin America for American farm products Congress becomes a high stakes chess match some causes will win some will fall but this is chess with a wild card to find it one only needs to look to the west and an issue obscure to us
Today that brought about a fiery debate Six States have joined the union Montana Washington Idaho Wyoming North and South Dakota the most during any Administration and something that Harrison had argued for as far back as his days as chairman of the senate committee on territories mostly agrarian
States and several with Rich loads of silver they support coinage of the metal to bring bounty to Miners and relief to the farm community creditors in the United States wanted the money supply to be relatively small because every dollar they had or were owed would be worth more farmers in
The west who had overextended themselves were deeply in debt saw silver as a way of lifting some of their debt burden next there are those who fear that with explosive eon economic growth in railroads and steel too much power now rests with the consolidation of business a new word finds its way into
The American vocabulary trusts and there is Harrison himself and an issue that is never far from his mind the colored people did not intrude themselves upon us they were brought here in Chains they are now free when and under what conditions is the black
Man to have a free ballot when is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law I think that in many ways we can look at Harrison as someone who is making the point that the United States is a multiethnic nation right that these
People are citizens black folks in the South are citizens just as much as white Southerners are and there certain rights that they are entitled to and that’s I think it’s a powerful statement especially coming at this time the debate cools the votes readed for consideration by the 51st Congress Ohio
Senator John Sherman’s Silver Purchase Act in which the government buys 4 and a half million ounces of silver each month which could in turn be redeemed in certificates for silver or for gold the Antitrust Act also named after its sponsor John Sherman seeks to punish conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition
Itself but an impass seems to be Brewing over new Hampshire Senator Henry Blair’s education bill was pretty Innovative for the time right Harrison supports this bill uh that would have provided federal funding uh to the states uh to specifically to put towards education especially literacy and there’s a lot of
Opposition towards this the bill essentially would have been applied to everyone black folks in the South they’re working hard to escape the legacy of slavery in an era when reading is Criminal for many of them and the federal elections bill co-sponsored by Massachusetts Henry kbet Lodge and George wh appears headed for Rough
Waters what the 1890 election bill does is provide for federal supervision of congressional elections the Democrats portrayed it as what they called a force Bill meaning you’re going to use federal authority to force the South to allow black people to vote speaker Reed was able to get the lodge Bill through the
House of Representatives it was a narrow vote but he got it through then it went to the Senate where the tariff Bill the McKinley bill was still pending it became sort of a showdown but Harrison’s window of opportunity has closed in the midterms Democrats retake control of Congress the Democrats were never going
To let some something like like this pass uh it was you know their political power uh was geared upon uh suppressing the African-American vote in the South they came back it didn’t happen slate of hand and it never got passed the Silver Purchase pension and antitrust bills all pass the lodge and
Blair bills do not and so the backlash to the lodge bill was far more important than the effort itself because it it caused white Southerners to redouble their efforts to exclude African-Americans from the political process this is when lynching was at its peak in the United States something that
Harrison abhor and denounced but seemed powerless to stop styed by a hostile Congress Harrison looks for ways where he can act unilaterally it seems the country’s Affairs of state are a wide open arena for him it’s true he named James G Blaine as his secretary of state but the
Plumed Knight as he is called often reports that he is too ill to handle most matters that are on his plate or once again is he rumor has it that Blain can’t stand the heat of the Washington in DC summer and whenever possible he retreats to the coolness of his home state
Maine of the other members of his cabinet Harrison is closest to Benjamin Tracy the secretary of the Navy that Bond was strengthened by a tragedy that befell Tracy in February of 1890 his house burned down in Washington and Harrison rushed to the scene helped administer uh artificial respiration to
Resuscitate him and he also had the very G uh duty of telling Tracy that uh his wife and daughter had died where they were like-minded was in the advancement of American interests for Harrison it was through promoting American products for Tracy to protect Commerce it was in revitalizing the American Fleet which
Had fallen from the most powerful in the world during the Civil War to a Remnant a mighty Roar from 15,000 throats rent the air and the big warship glided from the ways of the cramp Shipyard her battery of 13 and 8 in guns is one of the most powerful batteries
Provided for a United States ship The Illustrated American Congress authorized the building of three battleships for Navy that had none with the beginnings of a fleet that could Patrol two oceans Harrison proved that he would not be afraid to use it it was the USS Baltimore uh that was
Docked in Chile and some American Sailors took shle and there was a big fight and American Sailors were killed in fact there were some rumors that the local police were involved in this melee and had actually uh killed some of the American Sailors Harrison demanded reparations the Chilean government
Stubbornly refused and Harrison was ready to send the fleet down to Chile but cooler heads prevailed there was no war still with Blaine a consistent no-show Harrison turns his skills as a negotiator to the world stage he reopens the European market to American pork after fears of disease had closed it he
Settled a controversy between the US Britain and Canada concerning harvesting the seal population of the proloff islands issuing the first presidential order to protect an individual species and at Blain’s urging he convened a six-week tour of American factories by by delegations from Latin America and he favored building a transatlantic canal through
Nicaragua Harrison was a Visionary about those questions and I I don’t think all presidents would have would have uh would have bought into them now approaching 60 Harrison seemed to be everywhere at once he personally appeared to open infrastructure projects across the country he remains true to his goal of advancing African-American
Prestige by naming Frederick Douglas ambassador assador to Haiti he was the first to use the railroads to travel to the West Coast covering 10,000 mil and giving 140 speeches in a month he saw a West that was rapidly changing character the last serious confrontation between the United States and the Indian tribes
A massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota occurred during Harrison’s presidency he cleaned house at the Indian agency acknowledging that cuts and rations and delays and following through on treaty obligations were at fault and he slipped a provision into a land revision act that few Congressman actually read but which gave him
Tremendous power he put more than 30 million Acres of forest under protection as a a national forest uh the the prec precursor to our national forest system we have today yet no amount of collaboration passive or otherwise could smooth over the the growing Rift between Harrison and his secretary of state
Exacerbated by Harrison’s refusal to make Blain’s son Walker the assistant Secretary of State Mrs Blaine never got over this and neither did her husband Mrs Blaine in her private letters mocked Caroline Harrison referred to her as her American Majesty in essence the the blaes thought you know those hooers down
At the White House they really they are sitting in our seats the White House that Caroline Harrison inherited was hardly a palace fit for a queen let alone a first family the rats have nearly taken the building so it has become necessary to get a man with ferrets they have become
So numerous and bold they get up on the table in the upper Hall and one got up on Mr hord’s bed Caroline Harrison it was a Vermin infested uh not not really decent living quarters she ordered it all to be scrubbed and cleaned to try to bring up
Levels of Sanitation both for the family and for the people that were working there and did significant renovations to the rooms and again really work to beautify the White House another thing to that that we do not do today typically that very much was a habit in
The 19th century is clipping off pieces of the curtains it was the people’s house they roamed around the there wasn’t the level of security that there is now an intruder breaks into the White House and so Benjamin Harrison comes downstairs and there’s these two guards trying to sedute this
Intruder and Benjamin Harrison assists gets the guy ties him up with the curtain cord and turns to the guard and says there anything more that you acquire from me but if you’re going to build a more secure and more userfriendly place to call home the first lady thought do it with style
Looks sort of like veride everything’s covered in glass you ‘ got palms and statues in every which place there all these little markings say we’re going to put a palm tree here and we’re going to put a statue here it’s almost something you’d find like a luxury hotel but
Caroline’s Vision was prevented by the politics of the time seems as though Harrison’s traditional Ally speaker Reed was miffed over lack of patronage and never brought it to a vote she was allotted $30,000 by Congress to make a major overhaul of the White House and did significant renovations to the room
Really work to beautify the White House to really show it at its best he’s the first one to put electricity in the white house he and his wife would not turn this touch the switches they were afraid of handling the electricity Caroline called in a photographer to give the public a first
Glimpse inside the new White House Francis Benjamin Johnston not surprising for Caroline Harrison within the bounds of her influence as first lady helped Advance women’s issues Carolyn Harrison for example used her reputation to help ensure that women would be admitted to John’s Hopkins to study medicine she was the first first
Lady to give public address of her own remarks she was the first first lady to have a public art exhibition she was recognized as an expert China painter she collected the White House china from many generations of presidents as a concession to a more habitable living space the president
Himself turned his office into a parlor after all the White House was getting a little cramped at any given time Caroline’s father and the children and grandchildren could take up residence it was also home to her widowed niece Mary Lord dimik who was called MIM she even
Was granted access to the uh official code sometimes she would decode uh foreign policy uh documents to help the president you ought to feel very much flattered at how your Uncle Ben thinks of you Elizabeth Lord the media darling of the household is the president’s grandson Benjamin
Harrison mcke the Press calls him baby mcke the White House pet it’s a colorful time in the Harrison household Benjamin and Caroline ranard on a virtual Noah’s Arc Caroline’s dog Dash several cats two possums gifted to the president named Mr protection and Mr reciprocity and a goat
Named Mr Whiskers who often pulled baby mcke around in a cart without warning the goat started down Executive Avenue on a Brisk caner at the foot of the Descent was an excavation where Workman had been repairing the street the president saw this his coattail shot straight out behind the Arkansas daily
Traveler he was wheezing like a porpus the president by a brilliant coup caught the Bridle of the fleet footed goat just before the excavation was reached General Harrison displayed better running qualities than he did at the polls the Washington star it is now 1892 and if James G Blaine is hemming
And haing about running against his boss for the Republican nomination it must be an election year mere weeks before the convention he resigns as Secretary of State but Harrison’s men are too Savvy in the ways of the party apparatus the contingent known as blancs is styed and
Harrison is renominated it will be an upill climb to keep the White House for its expansive Vision the 51st Congress gets the nickname the billion dooll Congress but therein lies a problem the 1890 Pension Act opens the floodgates the Harrison Administration will begin with a treasury Surplus that’s going to
Just disappear and and by the turn of the 1900s pensions are a third of the federal budget pensions are granted for any reason one mother gets funds based on a son who fell off his horse and drowned in a river while deserting another elderly wife gets money based on
A husband who fell off a ladder a lot of young girls ran out to marry these make guys who are may be 60 years old knowing that someday they would get their pension someday soon they would get their pension the Republicans are a victim of their own success they get the
Pension law they get the tariff law they get the Silver Purchase Act they get the anti-rust act they put a lot of measures through and so there’s a lot to criticize what we see coming to ahead in 1892 is a consequence of the growing inequality of income in the United
States and laborers said hey how come we’re not getting our fair share farmers were in bad shape economically they succeeded too well in what they did with mechanization and further land coming under cultivation they were producing too much and the prices collapsed economic unrest leads to strikes at
Carnegi steel and the cord to lean Silver Mines leading to violence and a new populist movement is springing up out west to challenge the two-party establishment it’s clearly not a uh very welld distributed National growth you start to see by the late 1880s newspaper stories about the
Senate and as a Millionaire’s Club so you know they have a very strong message that the Republican party is a protector of business interests as opposed to workingclass interests and doesn’t vote well for Harrison uh in the White House Harrison’s Democratic rival is once again Grover Cleveland but Harrison has
No heart for the struggle Caroline is deathly ill with tuberculosis a planned trip to the rondex has not worked to restore her failing Health every morning for weeks passed a lone and solitary man has been walking in the garden overlooking the pomac the president slowly and with eyes cast down once a week
Newspaper Caroline Harrison dies in The White House just 2 weeks before the election out of respect Cleveland does no campaigning what tipped Harrison’s way in ‘ 88 tipped Cleveland’s way in ‘ 92 and Harrison lost he did not carry Indiana he did not carry New York he did
Not carry Illinois he did not carry Wisconsin he might no longer be the incumbent but Harrison is still an expansionist seeking a fueling station in Pearl Harbor he tacitly accepts the overthrow of the monarchy in Hawaii and urges Congress to Annex the islands it’s the world in which uh he lived right I
Mean I think that that’s what powerful nations in the period are doing um they’re not sort of staying at home uh they are expanding I think a lot of it’s Commerce but I don’t think that that could be separated away from uh this idea of uh American influence America
Can bring something different to some of these places it is Harrison’s last act as president one that Grover Cleveland and his philosophy of small government quickly put to an end in March 1893 Benjamin Harrison returned to his house on Delaware Street alone his first day back he put flowers on Caroline’s
Grave it is fearfully Lonesome in this empty house I have not gotten into visiting habits and it is very rare that anyone comes in Harrison uh was determined to reinvigorate his law practice needless to say as an ex-president he could command very high fees and he did he had
Prosperity he had his family but there was still something missing and that was true love before long everyone noticed the inordinate number of carriage rides that the general was taking with a certain someone he had reconnected with MIM Caroline’s niece over the next four years their relationship blossomed and
With Benjamin Tracy serving as best man they married he was 62 she 37 Russell the son and Mary the daughter were were quite appalled by this somehow it was a travesty against their mother a year later daughter Elizabeth was born comfortable at last in his Twilight years Harrison writes a book this
Country of ours and gives a series of lectures at Stanford University he takes MIM and Elizabeth with him to Paris as he represents Venezuela in a dispute with British Giana sh going remarkable endurance arguing for 25 hours in court but then surprising Feats of endurance seemed to be standard operating
Procedure for General Harrison he was taking his evening stroll near his home on Delaware Street when one of his neighbors burst out of her home and saying that two men who were hurrying down the street had just robbed her her home and Harrison uh took off after the
Men he allow him to stop and cease and assist and Harrison himself uh naed one of the robbers in February 1901 his legendary resilience left him Harrison came down with influenza which soon worsened into pneumonia at 4:45 in the afternoon of March 13th he passed away at home in a
Room filled with relatives and members of his administration his doctor held his left hand checking for a pulse maim held his right neither his son Russell nor his daughter Mary made it back in time the 70th Indiana marched with their General one final time circling Monument Circle in Indianapolis before proceeding
Out to Crown Hill Cemetery and into history I think Harrison’s Administration really deserves reexamination and and a rethinking and and a and a and a questioning about where he really fits in the evolution of the presidency Billion Dollar Congress 51st Congress passed a record number of
Public laws it was a kind of standout Administration you think about the fact that a president in the late 19th century is advocating actively for African-American voting rights and his inaugural address that’s surprising you also think about him calling for and signing the Sherman Antitrust Act it’s
Not what you would expect one of the things surprised me the most is that people don’t talk about him more he’s someone who is doing things that aren’t necessarily popular but that I think we could look at from the present day look back on and say he’s making uh the right decision which
Isn’t always the easy decision uh but he’s making the right decision you never question his sincerity or his work ethic and it takes going through some tough times politically or economically in this country to say you know those Dependable qualities you don’t always get and boy
You miss them when you don’t have them it is able in the midst of all of these challenges all of these difficulties to find a way to find a way he’s all right in October of 1908 as it had 20 years earlier University Park in Indianapolis was packed with onlookers
Some reverential and some merely curious this time it was to Mark the unveiling of a bronze sculpture Harrison’s daughter Elizabeth did the honors they had come from every state of the union but Harrison would forever be Indiana’s president loved of all men choice of a nation’s Mighty Brotherhood her Soldier
Statesman ruler I but then we knew him long before the world’s Applause and after as a neighbor kind and good our common friend and fellow citizen James witam Riley perhaps Harrison himself had pronounced his own Epitaph years before honoring the memory of ulysis ES Grant at Mount Gregor New York great lives
Never go out he said they go On A president at the crossroads has made possible through a generous Grant from the Indiana office of Tourism development
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