The Presidential Election Season Is Coming

by Frank Boles

The 2014 mid-term elections are over, but in a cycle as old as the Republic itself, potential candidates for the 2016 presidential race are beginning to test the water. Back in 1964, CMU’s graduating class witnessed a particularly vibrant presidential election when Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson. Because of the excitement that contest stirred, the Class of ’64 did something extraordinary: they gifted the Clarke with funds to begin a “presidential campaign biography collection.”

The idea was straightforward: to document the biographical information put out by and about the candidates who hoped to become president. The project proved amazingly successful. Today, the campaign biography collection encompasses campaigns from Andrew Jackson’s defeat of John Quincy Adams in 1828 through the historic election of 2012. Soon enough, the Clarke Historical Library will begin buying the books issued for the 2016 race -- the cheerful biographies “favored” by the candidates, the alleged “smears” published by their critics, and of course the books authored by the candidates themselves in which they portray their vision for America. All of these books help us understand the candidates the public voted for (or against). It makes it possible for future students and scholars to study the reason, and the emotion, behind the selection of the president. And it allows the library to mount an exhibit about the presidential election every four years, which helps the CMU community understand the current presidential contest through a meaningful historical filter. Overall, it is a truly valuable collection that we are proud to preserve, and regularly enlarge.

Although the collection continues to grow, the original financial gift from the Class of ’64 was long ago spent. This year, at the 50th reunion of the Class of ’64, we asked them to help us create an endowment to permanently support the project they so generously helped us begin a half-century ago. While the collection was created by the Class of ’64, and thus we hope they have a special interest in helping to forward it, interest in the presidency and those who would aspire to that office certainly extends far beyond that one Class.

Thus, we welcome support for the Endowment campaign not only from members of the Class of ’64 but from anyone interested in helping us continue the documentary effort they established. Our goal is to raise $10,000, an endowment of sufficient size to create a spendable fund that will pay for the biographical books and other related material generated every four years, when the country is called upon to select its leader, as well as to establish funding to “fill in” missing works in the collection.

I hope that if you have an interest in this project, and in the Clarke, you will consider a year-end gift to the Class of ’64 Presidential Campaign Biography Endowment. Please click on this link for details about taking advantage of this opportunity.

Roosevelt Storms Marquette

By John Fierst

Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican Party when he ran as a Progressive in the election of 1912. The split led to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson taking the White House. It was an unusual campaign, to say the least, which included an attempt on Roosevelt’s life. John Flamming Schrank, who shot Roosevelt as the candidate was leaving the Gilpatrick Hotel in Milwaukee, claimed the ghost of William McKinley had directed him to do so. Roosevelt shrugged off the wound as not serious (though the bullet remained in his chest the rest of his life). What he could not shrug off so easily were the many attempts at character assassination that dogged him throughout the campaign, especially the repeated charge that he was a drunkard.

Roosevelt finally decided to do something about the charge of drunkenness and to silence, once and for all, the libelous press. He made his stand in, of all places, Marquette, Michigan, where he brought suit against George Newett, an Ishpeming newspaper publisher. Newett had charged in the local paper, The Iron Ore, that Roosevelt lied, cursed, and drank to excess. Roosevelt gathered together a host of supporters, and they made their way to the small shipping port on Lake Superior. There, Roosevelt’s lawyer, James H. Pound, took command of the courthouse and overwhelmed the defense with character witnesses and expert opinion.

Pound began his defense of Roosevelt’s moral character by examining Roosevelt himself:

Q. Now, I wish you would describe in your own way to the jury, what, if any, use you make of liquors, spirituous or malt, since your manhood, in your recollection.

A. I do not drink either whiskey or brandy, except as I shall hereafter say, except as I drink it under the direction of a doctor; I do not drink beer; I sometimes drink light wine.

Q. Let me ask you right there, have you ever indulged in porter on any occasion?

A. I never drank liquor or porter or anything of that kind. I have never drunk a high-ball or cocktail in my life. I have sometimes drunk mint juleps in the White House. There was a bed of mint there, and I may have drunk half a dozen mint juleps a year, and certainly no more.

Then followed a train of twenty-five character witnesses. Among them were: two former Rough Riders; an admiral and an ex-secretary of the Nary; a member of the Associated Press; a naturalist from the Smithsonian; members of the United State Secret Service; the social reformer Jacob A. Riis; President Garfield’s son James, who had once served as Secretary of the Interior; Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the United States Forest Service; Dr. Alexander Lambert, Roosevelt’s family physician, and Dr. P.M. Rixey, Surgeon General of the United States; All these and many more either took the stand or, like Roosevelt’s butler and his former barber, submitted written depositions, testifying to TR’s abstemiousness.

Under this barrage of high-mindedness Newett was brought low—bully!—and he recanted. Roosevelt then waived his right to damages. He had waged this battle on moral grounds and had achieved his purpose before God and the electorate. Hence forward U.S. presidential campaigns would be free of gossip and slander.

One of the witnesses, the New York banker W. Emlyn Roosevelt, a cousin and close friend of Roosevelt, later had the transcript of the successful suit privately published. Recently the Clarke Historical Library acquired a copy of this publication: Roosevelt vs. Newett: A Transcript of the Testimony Taken and Depositions Read at Marquette, Mich. It is 361 pages long. A letter signed by Roosevelt and addressed to Dr. Albert Shaw, the editor of the “Review of Reviews” and one of the men who submitted a written deposition at the trial, is tipped into the front of the book, indicating that originally this was Shaw’s own copy.

Portion of the testimony of Jacob Riis
in Roosevelt vs. Newett

The book has value beyond being a description of the trial. Pound fashioned his questions to establish the credibility of the witnesses. He asked questions that explored their backgrounds and explained their relationships to Roosevelt. Jacob Riis, author of How the Other Half Lives was a great admirer of Roosevelt, and earlier he had praised Roosevelt in a campaign biography: Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. Riis’s firsthand testimony, given in Marquette, reveals more than his distant respect for Roosevelt. It makes clear the strength of the bond of friendship between the two men.

With the Clarke Historical Library’s interest in Michigan history and presidential campaign biographies, Roosevelt vs. Newett has found a welcome home in the Clarke collection.

Celebrating America’s Presidential Near Misses

By Frank Boles

Document signed by Lewis Cass, Governor of Territory of Michigan.
Found in Clarke Historical Library, Richard Collection

President’s Day celebrates the individuals who have served as America’s chief executive, and offers an excuse to also think about some of the near misses. One of those “could-have-beens” was Michigan’s Lewis Cass, one of many candidates documented through the Clarke Historical Library’s Presidential Campaign Biography collection.

Lewis Cass was born in New Hampshire in 1782, and in 1801, he moved to what would eventually become Ohio. During the War of 1812, he became a brigadier general. In 1813, the rising young star was appointed first military, and subsequently civilian, governor of the Michigan Territory. Cass would remain territorial governor until 1831 and would make his home in Detroit for the rest of his life. However, much of that life was spent far away from Michigan. In 1831, he joined Andrew Jackson’s cabinet as Secretary of War. He served as ambassador to France from 1836 until 1842. Cass “stood” for the presidential nomination within the Democratic Party in 1844, but lost to dark horse James K. Polk. His political aspirations were undiminished and in 1845, Cass was elected to the United States Senate from Michigan. He finally was named the Democratic Party’s nominee for the presidency in 1848.

By 1848, slavery increasingly divided the nation. Cass tried to avoid the issue by walking a very narrow political line. The means he promoted to do this was “Popular Sovereignty.” The idea, which Cass was a chief proponent of, would allow each state, whether currently existing or newly formed from a federal territory, to decide by vote whether to be slave or free. In essence, he hoped through an appeal to local democracy to remove slavery from the federal arena and make it the exclusive concern of the states.

Cass soon discovered that his seemingly clever solution to an intractable political and moral issue pleased no one. Anti-slavery northerners were incensed that formerly free federal territories might enter the Union as slave states. Southern slave owners were incensed that they could be denied their “property” by a popular vote. The idea split the Democratic Party and placed Cass into an unwinnable presidential campaign, which was summarized by some with the phrase, “alas, poor Cass.”

Cass lost the 1848 presidential election to Zachary Taylor. Despite this national defeat, Cass remained popular in Michigan and continued to be an important figure in the Democratic Party. He was returned to the U.S. Senate in 1849, and was a serious contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1852. In 1857, Cass left the Senate when President James Buchanan appointed him Secretary of State.

Deeply disapproving of Buchanan’s weak policies toward the increasingly restive South, Cass found in national unity a moral compass he failed to possess about slavery. Unwilling to compromise about the Union itself, he resigned as Secretary of State on December 13, 1860, protesting Buchanan's failure to protect federal interests in the South or to mobilize the federal military to meet the increasing possibility of Southern secession. After resigning, Cass returned to Detroit, where he lived to see the victory of the Union Army in the Civil War. He died in 1866.

The presidential campaign of 1848 is but one documented in the Clarke Historical Library’s Presidential Campaign Biography collection. The books found in the collection look across American history through the issues of each presidential election. Presidential campaigns have often raised issues of great moral significance as well as sometimes descending into trivia. Regardless of the issues in a given election, how candidates addressed those issues and the decision of the voters have collectively shaped America as a nation, and are told through the Presidential Campaign Biography collection.

Historical Detroit Free Press Available at CMU

by Bryan Whitledge

The Clarke Historical Library and the Central Michigan University Libraries are pleased to announce that we now carry the historic Detroit Free Press. This database, provided by ProQuest, contains digitized copies of every issue of the Free Press published between May of 1831 and December of 1922 -- 90 years of Michigan history!

What February 12, 2013 Means to the Clarke

by Bryan Whitledge and Lindsay Gabriel

Tuesday, February 12 marks two events that the Clarke would like to recognize - President Lincoln's 204th birthday and Paczki Day. Because the two events have not much in common, today's blog posting is a 2-for-1 deal.

First, in recognition of the birthday of our 16th President, we are sharing a greeting signed by President Lincoln and dated April 16, 1862. This autograph is one from a collection of every U. S. President's autographs, which is currently on loan at the Clarke Historical Library.

In addition to this item, the Clarke maintains information related to Abraham Lincoln's only speech on Michigan soil, which took place in Kalamazoo on August 27, 1856. Information ranges from microfilm of historical copies of the Kalamazoo Gazette to reprints of the speech published years after Lincoln's assassination.

The second event that we would like to pay homage to is Fat Tuesday and in Michigan, Fat Tuesday means paczkis. The Clarke has a wealth of resources devoted to both Polish culture in Michigan and Michigan cookbooks. Some of these resources cross and in their pages, one can find information about the paczki. Above is a page from Polish Heritage Cookery by Robert and Maria Strybel explaining paczkis.

For the uninitiated, a paczki is pronounced punch-kee. It is a deep-fried dough pastry filled with a sweet filling. Fat Tuesday is the traditional day to eat this calorie-laden treat, which comes from the Polish Catholic tradition of using up all of the food that would be otherwise forbidden during Lent (lard, butter, sugar, eggs, etc.). No matter one's cultural background, Paczki Day is looked forward to by many Michiganders.

Every day at the Clarke has some historical significance and February 12 of 2013 gives us a great excuse to share some of our favorite things with you.

Presidency Exhibit closes this Weekend

The current exhibit in the Clarke Historical Library, “The Presidency” will close on Monday, January 28^th. If you have been putting off visiting to see the collection of political cartoons, presidential campaign biographies, and the wonderful collection of autographs signed by each of the 43 American presidents, which is on loan to the Library, this weekend will be your last chance.  Drop by weekdays from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm or this Saturday from 9:00 am until 1:00 pm.

Library Receives Presidential Autograph

By Frank Boles  

For the past several months the Clarke has exhibited a loaned collection of original presidential signatures, linked to a display of the library’s presidential campaign biographies.  The exhibit will come to a close this month and during its run, I have tried to obtain the signature of President Obama, to add to the collection of campaign biographies.

The problem with this is that virtually all contemporary presidential signatures are “robos,” that is letters and other documents signed by a machine.  President John Kennedy installed the first robo machine in the White House, and every president since him has continued using ever more sophisticated examples of the devices. The machines allow presidents to honor the hundreds of requests the White House receives daily for presidential signatures, sort of.

Collectors, however, have turned to finding “authenticated” autographs, that is a presidential signature that someone can attest was really made by the president himself.  For example, the autograph on loan in our exhibit is a title page from the President’s book, The Audacity of Hope, signed during a book tour.

Over the past several months, I’ve been looking for that magic “authenticated” signature for the Clarke. I’ve tried writing elected officials, back channeling through friends and friends of friends, and pretty much everything else, without luck.  Over the holidays, however, the Clarke received a Christmas present from a CMU alumni who was among the people who knew the library was looking for a presidential autograph, and who recently happened to be in a room with the President of the United States. With a lot of help from our new library BFF, President Obama’s authenticated signature, on White House stationary, arrived in the mail, housed in a simple business envelope.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to both our benefactor who took the time to help us (an undoubtedly risked annoying a man who must be really tired of someone always asking him to “just please sign something for me, maybe on that White House notecard over there”) and the many friends who put me in touch with their friends. Eventually those contacts paid off!