CLEVELAND, Grover, full name, Stephen Grover Cleveland, (1837–1908), 22nd and 24th president of the U.S. (1885–89, 1893–97), the only chief executive to be reelected after defeat. Cleveland adopted the credo "a public office is a public trust" and in his two nonconsecutive terms spent much of his energies resisting partisan influences and the political favoritism characteristic of that era. Cleveland was born the son of a country clergyman in Caldwell, N.J., on March 18, 1837. His family soon moved to New York, settling in Fayetteville and then Clinton, where this family of nine children struggled on the father’s modest salary. Prevented by his father’s death from attending college, Cleveland moved to an uncle’s home near Buffalo, N.Y., and clerked for a law firm. Studying by himself, he was admitted to the bar in 1859.   Rise to Prominence in New York. In a series of minor political offices, Cleveland won a reputation for scrupulous honesty. This earned him the Democratic nomination for mayor of Buffalo in 1881, and he won the office on a reform platform. In his inaugural address, he launched an attack on the notoriously corrupt board of aldermen, and in the ensuing battles to reduce graft and break the board’s power, Cleveland earned the title of the Veto Mayor. With bipartisan support in Buffalo, he became the Democratic nominee for governor in 1882 and achieved an enormous victory. Pursuing reform in his first year as governor, Cleveland found two of his favorite bills stalled in the legislature by allies of New York City’s Democratic chairman, John Kelly (1822–86). In the subsequent conflict, the city’s Democrats became his permanent enemies. Cleveland experienced a crisis of public support in his brief tenure as governor when he vetoed a bill that would have reduced the fare on elevated railroads in New York City. The public favored the lower rate, but the change would have violated the company’s charter. When Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt (later president) reversed his vote and supported Cleveland, the governor won. In 1884 Cleveland’s supporters proposed that he run for president. The Republican convention had chosen as its candidate James G. Blaine, whose political career had been marred by suggestions of corruption in aiding the railroad industry years before. A sizable reform faction in the Republican party, however, opposed Blaine’s nomination, and they seceded, earning the label Mugwumps. They promised to vote for the yet unchosen Democratic candidate if he supported reform. Cleveland’s past public service therefore made him the likely candidate despite Tammany’s opposition. The promise of Mugwump votes swayed enough delegates to give him the needed margin.   First Term as President. Cleveland won the election after a close race that was marred by various personal accusations against both candidates. Taking office in 1885, he resisted the petitions of thousands of party members and supporters for jobs and continued the civil service reforms begun by his predecessor, Chester A. Arthur. This disappointed many Democrats who were hoping for lucrative jobs after 24 years of Republican rule. In 1887 Cleveland persuaded Congress to repeal the Tenure of Office Act, which had restricted the president’s right to dismiss federal officeholders without the consent of the Senate. This left him free to remove officials appointed by the previous administration before their terms expired, to carry out reforms in government agencies, and to reassert the independence of the president’s powers. In two other controversial moves, he vetoed a general pension bill that would have allowed American Civil War veterans to collect pensions for disabilities suffered after they had left the army, and he opposed protective tariffs on imported goods. Cleveland narrowly lost the election of 1888 to the Republican Benjamin Harrison despite winning a majority of the popular vote.   Second Term. Under the Harrison administration, inflation increased the price of consumer goods, and public sentiment turned against the protective tariff the Republicans passed in 1890. Cleveland was persuaded to seek office again in 1892, and he ran on an antitariff platform. Winning the election, he returned to Washington in 1893 to face the beginnings of a depression.   The silver and tariff issues. The Sherman Act of 1890, designed to stimulate the silver industry in the West, compelled the Treasury Department to buy 4.5 million oz of silver each month. Greenbacks and treasury notes were used to buy the silver and, to maintain parity, were redeemable in gold or silver. Economic panic in 1893 created a run on treasury reserves of gold as the value of silver fell. The purchase of silver then contributed to the outflow of gold and threatened monetary disaster. Cleveland sought legislation to repeal the Sherman Act. In the months of congressional infighting he lost the support of a large faction of western and southern Democrats, led by William Jennings Bryan, who favored free silver coinage. Cleveland worked to reduce the so-called McKinley Tariff, which had protected some American goods from competition but harmed other industries that needed imported materials. The Democrats’ tariff bill was so weakened in the Senate, however, that when it emerged as the Wilson-Gorman Act, Cleveland refused to sign it, and it became law without his endorsement.   Foreign policy, 1893–1897. Hawaii When Cleveland took office he faced the question of Hawaiian annexation. In his first term, Cleveland had supported free trade with Hawai'i and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbor. In the intervening four years, Honolulu businessmen of European and American ancestry had denounced Queen Liliuokalani as a tyrant who rejected constitutional government; in early 1893 they overthrew her, set up a republican government under Sanford B. Dole, and sought to join the United States. The Harrison administration had quickly agreed with representatives of the new government on a treaty of annexation and submitted it to the Senate for approval. Five days after taking office on March 9, 1893, Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to Hawai'i to investigate the conditions there. Cleveland agreed with Blount's report, which found the populace to be opposed to annexation. Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition of her reinstatement, saying that she would either execute or banish the current government in Honolulu, and Dole's government refused to yield their position. By December 1893, the matter was still unresolved, and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress. In his message to Congress, Cleveland rejected the idea of annexation and encouraged the Congress to continue the American tradition of non-intervention. The Senate, under Democratic control but hostile to Cleveland, produced the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair. Cleveland dropped all talk of reinstating the Queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii. Closer to home, Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that did not simply forbid new European colonies, but declared an American interest in any matter within the hemisphere. When Britain and Venezuela disagreed over the boundary between the latter nation and the colony of British Guiana, Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney protested. British prime minister Lord Salisbury and the British ambassador to Washington, Julian Pauncefote misjudged the importance the American government placed on the dispute, prolonging the crisis before ultimately accepting the American demand for arbitration. A tribunal convened in Paris in 1898 to decide the matter, and in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana. By standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of a colonial power, Cleveland improved relations with the United States' southern neighbors, but the cordial manner in which the negotiations were conducted also made for good relations with Britain.   Cancer. In the midst of the fight for repeal of Free Silver coinage in 1893, Cleveland sought the advice of the White House doctor, Dr. O'Reilly, about soreness on the roof of his mouth and a crater-like edge ulcer with a granulated surface on the left side of Cleveland's hard palate. Samples of the tumor were sent anonymously to the army medical museum. The diagnosis was not a malignant cancer, but instead an epithelioma. Cleveland decided to have surgery secretly, to avoid further panic that might worsen the financial depression. The surgery occurred on July 1, to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for the upcoming Congressional session. Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland and his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York. The surgeons operated aboard the Oneida, a yacht owned by Cleveland's friend E. C. Benedict, as it sailed off Long Island. The surgery was conducted through the president's mouth, to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery. The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide and ether, successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland's mouth disfigured. During another surgery, Cleveland was fitted with a hard rubber dental prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance. A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press placated. Even when a newspaper story appeared giving details of the actual operation, the participating surgeons discounted the severity of what transpired during Cleveland's vacation. In 1917, one of the surgeons present on the Oneida, Dr. William W. Keen, wrote an article detailing the operation. Cleveland enjoyed many years of life after the tumor was removed, and there was some debate as to whether it was actually malignant. Several doctors, including Dr. Keen, stated after Cleveland's death that the tumor was a carcinoma. Other suggestions included ameloblastoma or a benign salivary mixed tumor (also known as a pleomorphic adenoma). In the 1980s, analysis of the specimen finally confirmed the tumor to be verrucous carcinoma, a low-grade epithelial cancer with a low potential for metastasis.   States admitted to the Union. In Cleveland's first term, no new states had been admitted in more than a decade, owing to Congressional Democrats' reluctance to admit states that they believed would send Republican members. When Harrison took office, he and the Republican Congress admitted six states—North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming—all of which were expected to send Republican delegations. Utah, however, was believed to be Democratic. This, combined with uncertainty about Mormon polygamy (disavowed in 1890), led it to be excluded from the new states. When Cleveland won election to a second term, he and the Democratic majority in the 53rd United States Congress passed an Enabling Act in 1894 that permitted Utah to apply for statehood. Utah joined the Union on January 4, 1896.   The Pullman strike and the election of 1896. As the depression worsened, the Pullman Co. in 1894 reduced workers’ wages and fired some who objected to the reduction. Workers belonged to the American Railway Union, and sympathizers blocked the passage of trains pulling Pullman cars. At the request of company leaders, and despite the protests of Gov. John Peter Altgeld of Illinois, Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago to restore order and ensure the passage of mail trains, thereby upholding federal law. The momentum of the strike was broken, but so was the Democratic party. Workers, suffering farmers, and silverites combined in 1896 to nominate Bryan for the presidency. The Cleveland "gold Democrats" refused to support Bryan, and the Republican William McKinley was victorious.   Retirement and death. After leaving the White House on March 4, 1897, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, with his family, in Princeton, New Jersey. For a time he was a trustee of Princeton University, and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred Dean West's plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the university. Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902. Cleveland still made his views known in political matters. In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland weighed in on the women's suffrage movement, writing that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence." Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907 he fell seriously ill. The next year, he suffered a heart attack and died, on June 24, 1908, in Princeton. His last words were "I have tried so hard to do right." He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.   Honors and memorials. In his first term in office, Cleveland sought a summer house to escape the heat and smells of Washington, D.C., but needed to remain near the capital. Acting in secret, he located a house, Oak View (or Oak Hill), in a rural upland part of the District of Columbia, and bought it in 1886. Although he sold Oak View upon leaving the White House (the first time), the area became known as Cleveland Park, which name it still bears. The Cleveland’s are depicted in local murals. Grover Cleveland Hall at Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York. Cleveland Hall houses the offices of the college president, vice presidents, and other administrative functions and student services. Cleveland was a member of the first board of directors of the then Buffalo Normal School. Grover Cleveland Middle School in his birthplace, Caldwell, New Jersey, was named for him, as is Grover Cleveland High School in Buffalo, New York, and the town of Cleveland, Mississippi. Mount Cleveland, a volcano in Alaska, is also named after him. In 1895 he became the first U.S. President who was filmed. Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill of series 1928 and series 1934. He also appeared on the first few issues of the $20 Federal Reserve Notes from 1914. Since he was both the 22nd and 24th president, he was featured on two separate dollar coins released in 2012 as part of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005. In 2006, Free New York, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group, began raising funds to purchase the former Fairfield Library in Buffalo, New York and transform it into the Grover Cleveland Presidential Library & Museum. Cleveland’s political rise was due largely to factionalism in national politics; but he is remembered for his desire to protect the public trust and to assert the power of the presidency. Cleveland’s political rise was due largely to factionalism in national politics; but he is remembered for his desire to protect the public trust and to assert the power of the presidency.