Grover Cleveland: Ration the truth

Leadership lessons of the presidents

Grover Cleveland's reputation for honesty carried him far. During the Gilded Age, with its scandals and corruption, honesty in public office seemed a rare quality. As mayor of Buffalo and then governor of New York, Cleveland was known for being “ugly honest” — insisting on the truth even when it harmed him and his friends. During the presidential campaign of 1884 the rival Republicans discovered that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock years before. Cleveland's handlers urged him to deny it. "Tell the truth,” he rejoined. Voters admired his candor and elected him over James Blaine, whose relation to truth was dubious at best. When a drought in Texas caused Congress to earmark relief funds for Texas farmers, Cleveland stuck to his small-government guns and vetoed the bill, though the veto might cost him reelection.

It didn’t help. Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 but lost in electors. Benjamin Harrison encountered troubles in the economy and squabbles in his party, and voters returned Cleveland to office in 1892.

The economy worsened. American financial markets tanked in 1893, triggering a depression that swallowed Cleveland's second term. The depression aggravated a long-running debate over America's monetary system. Should it be based on gold, or on gold and silver together?

The money question split both parties. Most Republicans favored gold alone, but the party's western wing, representing silver-producing states like Nevada and Idaho, wanted to add silver to the mix. Many Democrats, especially from farm states, looked to silver to alleviate the deflation that was driving down crop prices and sending farmers into bankruptcy. But northern Democrats, including those from New York, home of Wall Street, favored the reliability of gold.

Cleveland belonged to the gold group, but party leaders had balanced the 1892 ticket by making Adlai Stevenson, an Illinoisan sympathetic to silver, the vice presidential nominee. The decision helped elect Cleveland. But it also meant that should something happen to Cleveland, America's policy might shift from gold to silver. Speculators and others kept a close eye on Cleveland's health.

Not close enough. In the spring of 1893, shortly after the onset of the financial panic, Cleveland was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his mouth. Many cancers in those days were inoperable, but this one might be removed without killing the patient. Or so concluded Cleveland's doctors.

Cleveland agreed to surgery. But he insisted that it take place in secret. If he died under the knife, the country would have to get used to a president with different ideas on money. But until he died, he didn't want the markets to be upset any further than they already were, by the possibility of his death.

Cleveland borrowed a motor yacht on the Hudson River for the procedure. The doctors and their equipment were smuggled aboard. The owner of the boat and a friend lounged conspicuously on deck where reporters might see them and infer nothing unusual was going on below.

In fact the main saloon of the yacht had been converted into a surgical theater. Cleveland was anesthetized with nitrous oxide, with ether held in reserve. The surgeons went to work. The procedure lasted longer than expected, requiring the patient to receive a dose of the ether. Finally the last of the cancerous tissue was removed. As Cleveland awoke he was given morphine for pain.

The cover-up persisted after the operation. The doctors were sworn to confidentiality. Cleveland's spokesman scoffed at rumors that the president was in ill health. When the rumors persisted, the administration modified its story to say that Cleveland had some teeth removed, nothing more.

The cover held for almost a quarter century. Nine years after Cleveland died, one of the surgeons came clean.

By then the United States was involved in World War I. The country had other things to worry about. Cleveland's deception didn't damage his historical reputation. If anything, it suggested that presidents might usefully ration the information they share with the public. The motive behind the cover-up was reasonable and not dishonorable. No wrongdoing was concealed.

Decades later, amid the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, a sentiment acquired the status of truism: “It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.” Cleveland's experience suggested a corollary: “If there's no crime, a cover-up doesn't create one.”