Seconding the nomination of the short and chubby Grover Cleveland for President at the Democratic convention in June 1884, General Edward S. Bragg cried: "They love Cleveland for his character, but they love him also for the enemies he has made!" What kind of enemies? Corrupt politicians in Buffalo, for one. As Mayor of that city, Cleveland had turned down so many crooked appropriation measures proposed by the city council that he came to be known as the "veto mayor" and as "His Obstinacy, Grover of Buffalo." Tammany Hall spoilsmen, for another. As Governor of New York, the "buxom Buffalonian" (who loved his food and beer) refused to accept bills passed by the state legislature to benefit Tammany's friends, handing down one veto after another from his desk in Albany.

Cleveland was called "ugly-honest," that is, truculently honest. When people coming to Albany seeking favors began whispering to him, he would answer them in a loud voice that everyone around could hear. And when an office-seeker whined, "Don't I deserve it for my party work?" Cleveland would say coldly, "I don't know that I understand you. His "you-be-damnedness" became famous. So did his hard work. One newsman sighed that Governor Cleveland "remains within doors constantly, eats and works, eats and works, and works and eats." Once someone asked Samuel J. Tilden, "What sort of man is this Cleveland?" "Oh," said Tilden in his squeaky voice, "he is the kind of man who would rather do something badly for himself than to have somebody else do it well."

But Cleveland was by no means all work and no play. Sometimes he took time off to play poker on Sunday afternoons. "My father used to say that it was wicked to go fishing on Sunday," he once explained, "but he never said anything about draw-poker." He also liked his beer; and as a young man he spent plenty of time drinking, singing, and chatting in the beer-gardens of Buffalo. In 1870, when he ran for district attorney of Erie County, he and his friendly opponent, Lyman K. Bass, agreed to drink only four glasses of beer daily. But after they had met a few times on warm summer evenings to talk things over, they decided that their ration was too skimpy and so began to "anticipate" their future supply. A few evenings later, Bass suddenly exclaimed: "Grover, do you know we have anticipated the whole campaign?" Cleveland nodded sorrowfully. The next night, however, both of them brought huge tankards to the saloon, christened them "glasses," and had no problem with the ration after that.

Cleveland continued to enjoy his beer after becoming Governor, but he also put in long hours at his desk. He was hard at work in Albany when news arrived that the Democrats had nominated him for President. "They are firing a salute, Governor, for your nomination," said one of his associates, hearing a distant cannon boom. "That's what it is," said someone else. "Do you think so?" said Cleveland thoughtfully. "Well, anyhow, we'll finish up this work." After the nomination, reporter William C. Hudson was assigned the task of preparing a campaign document setting forth Cleveland's achievements as Mayor of Buffalo and Governor of New York. Going through Cleveland's state papers and public addresses, he was struck by how frequently Cleveland had referred to public officers as trustees of the people. He finally came up with a slogan-"Public Office is a Public Trust"-and with great glee showed it to the candidate. "Where the deuce did I say that?" asked Cleveland doubtfully. "You've said it a dozen times publicly, but not in those few words," explained Hudson. "That's so," said Cleveland. "That's what I believe. That's what I've said a little better because more fully." "But this has the merit of brevity," Hudson pointed out, "and that is what is required here. The question is, will you stand for this form?" "Oh, yes," said Cleveland. "That's what I believe. I'll stand for it and make it my own." Within a few hours the country was ringing with the statement: "Governor Cleveland's greatest phrase: 'Public Office is a Public Trust.' "

During the campaign, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World listed four good reasons for endorsing Grover of Buffalo: "1. He is an honest man; 2. He is an honest man; 3. He is an honest man; 4. He is an honest man." Since Cleveland's Republican opponent, James G. Blaine, had been involved in railroad scandals, Republican reformers (called "Mugwumps") decided to desert their party and vote for Cleveland instead. Then, out of the blue, a Buffalo newspaper revealed "A Terrible Tale" about Cleveland: as a young bachelor in Buffalo he had become involved with Maria Halpin, an alcoholic widow, and fathered a child by her. "Tell the truth," said Cleveland quietly when his campaign managers came to him in despair. Fresh revelations of Blaine's secret railroad dealings diverted public attention from the Halpin story; but when Democratic leaders showed Cleveland documents purporting to besmirch Blaine's private life, he refused to make use of them. "Are the papers all here?" he asked. Assured that they were, he tore them to bits, threw them into a waste basket, and ordered them burned. "The other side can have a monopoly of all the dirt in this campaign," he declared. Meanwhile, Republican torchlight parades chanted, "Ma, ma, where's your pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!" Though shocked by the Halpin story, the Mugwumps decided to stick with Cleveland. As one of them put it: "We are told that Mr. Blaine has been delinquent in office but blameless in private life, while Mr. Cleveland has been a model of official integrity, but culpable in his personal relations. We should therefore elect Mr. Cleveland to the public office which he is so well qualified to fill, and remand Mr. Blaine to the private station which he is admirably fitted to adorn."

Reformers were pleased with their choice in 1884. After Cleveland was installed in office and confronted with a flood of hungry Democratic office-seekers, he stubbornly refused to make unworthy appointments. "Well," he growled to one Democratic politician seeking handouts for his constituents, "do you want me to appoint another horse thief for you?" But he found "the d--d everlasting clatter for offices" almost unbearable. It "makes me feel like resigning," he sighed. To his physician he once lamented, "Oh, Dr. Kean, those office-seekers! They haunt me in my dreams!" Haunted as well by the thought of an overactive federal government, he pored over Congressional legislation searching for possible vetoes. In four years he issued no fewer than 413, more than twice the number of veto messages which his twenty-one predecessors, from Washington to Arthur, had sent to Congress. He was called the "Veto President," and many children were taught to sing, "A fat man once sat in a President's chair, singing Ve-to, Ve-to, With never a thought of trouble or care, singing Ve-to, Ve-to."

Cleveland's first term in office met with general approval. Civil-service reformers liked what he was doing; businessmen praised his emphasis on sound money, economy, and efficiency in government. "I was against you, Mr. President," a Chicago clergyman told him. "I labored diligently among my flock and prayed that you might be overthrown, but now--" "I like that," interrupted Cleveland; "I like that but now, especially. Go on!" Despite the friends he made among voters, Cleveland lost his bid for re-election in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. He claimed that there was "no happier man in the United States" than he when he left the White House, but his wife was sure he would return to it. "Now, Jerry," she told one of the White House servants on the morning of Harrison's inauguration, "I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, and not let any of them get lost or broken, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again." "Excuse me, Mrs. Cleveland," said Jerry in some astonishment, "but just when does you all expect to come back, please---so I can have everything ready, I mean?" "We are coming back just four years from today," Mrs. Cleveland replied confidently. She was right. In 1892, Cleveland whipped Harrison and returned, with more pleasure than he had anticipated, to Jerry's care.

Cleveland's pleasure was short-lived; his second term was a stormy one. The Panic of 1893 touched off a long and harrowing depression, accompanied by widespread unemployment, labor unrest, agitation in the farm belt, and the rise of Populism. Cleveland was stubbornly honest, enormously conscientious, and politically courageous, but he was also narrow and unimaginative, unable to grasp social realities and utterly baffled by mass misery. According to a popular story, a lean and hungry man came to the White House one day, got down on his hands and knees, and began chewing the grass. "What are you doing?" asked Cleveland, seeing him from a window. "I'm hungry and have to eat grass," replied the man. "Why don't you go around to the back yard?" asked Cleveland. "The grass is longer there."

When Cleveland left the White House in 1897 he was one of the most unpopular men in the country. He retired to Princeton, New Jersey, deeply dejected over having lost the love and confidence of the American people. One day a friend came by for a visit; his fine setter dog, excluded at the door, found another entrance into the house. When the dog came trotting triumphantly into the drawing-room and put his cold muzzle on the former President's hand, the friend rushed over to expel him. "No, let him stay," cried Cleveland. "He at least likes me."

As the years passed people began to think more kindly of Grover of Buffalo. He had, after all, stood for honesty and integrity in government at a time when it was important to do so, and some of his vetoes were unquestionably justified. Once, when Cleveland was reminiscing with a friend about his White House days, he paused for a moment and then exclaimed: "Do you know that I ought to have a monument over me when I die?" "I am sure of that, Mr. President," said the friend, "but for what particular service?" "Oh!" returned Cleveland, "not for anything I have ever done, but for the foolishness I have put a stop to. If you knew the absurd things proposed to me at various times while I have been in public life, and which I sat down-and sat down hard-upon, you would say so too!" His last words before his death in June 1908 were: "I have tried so hard to do right."

Source: Paul F. Boller Jr., Presidential Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 177-81.