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U.S Presidents — Benjamin Harrison

OVERVIEW Name: Benjamin Harrison President: # 23 Term Number(s): 26 Term Length: 4 Took Office: March 4, 1889 Left Office: March 4, 1893 Age when Elected: 55 Party: Republican Also Known As: "Kid Gloves Harrison, Little Ben" BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Education: Miami University (Ohio) Occupation: Lawyer Other Governmental Position: United States Senator from Indiana. Military Service: Brigadier General in the Union Army Religion: Presbyterian Spouse(s): Caroline Lavinia Scott Harrison (October 20, 1853), Mary Scott Lord Dimmick Harrison (April 6, 1896) Children: Russell Benjamin Harrison, Mary Scott Harrison McKee, Elizabeth Harrison Walker Birthdate: August 20, 1833 Birthplace: North Bend, Ohio Deathdate: March, 13 1901 Deathplace: Indianapolis, Indiana Age at Death: 67 Cause of Death: influenza and pneumonia Place of Internment: Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana Signature FIRST ELECTION Election Year: 1888 Main Opponent: Grover Cleveland Voter Participation: N/A   Electoral Popular States Click for larger image Winner 233 (58.00%) 5,443,892 (47.80%) 23 Main Opponent 168 (41.9%) 5,534,488 (48.60%) 22 total 401 11,383,320 38 CABINET AND COURT APPOINTMENTS Vice President: Levi P. Morton Secretary of State: James G. Blaine (1889–1892), John W. Foster (1892–1893) Secretary of the Treasury: William Windom (1889–1891), Charles W. Foster (1891–1893) Secretary of War: Redfield Proctor (1889–1891), Stephen B. Elkins (1891–1893) Secretary of the Navy: Benjamin F. Tracy (1889–1893) Secretary of the Interior: John W. Noble (1889–1893) Secretary of Agriculture: Jeremiah M. Rusk (1889–1893) Attorney General: William H. H. Miller (1889–1893) Postmaster General: John Wanamaker (1889–1893) Supreme Court Assignments: David Josiah Brewer (1889), Henry Billings Brown (1890), George Shiras Jr. (1892), Howell Edmunds Jackson (1893) PRESIDENT'S BIOGRAPHY Nominated for president on the eighth ballot at the 1888 Republican Convention, Benjamin Harrison conducted one of the first "front-porch" campaigns, delivering short speeches to delegations that visited him in Indianapolis. As he was only 5 feet, 6 inches (168 cm) tall, Democrats called him "Little Ben"; Republicans replied that he was big enough to wear the hat of his grandfather, "Old Tippecanoe." Born in 1833 on a farm by the Ohio River below Cincinnati, Harrison attended Miami University in Ohio and read law in Cincinnati. He moved to Indianapolis, where he practiced law and campaigned for the Republican party. He married Caroline Lavinia Scott in 1853. After the Civil War—he was Colonel of the 70th Volunteer Infantry—Harrison became a pillar of Indianapolis, enhancing his reputation as a brilliant lawyer. The Democrats defeated him for governor of Indiana in 1876 by unfairly stigmatizing him as "Kid Gloves" Harrison. In the 1880s he served in the United States Senate, where he championed Indians, homesteaders, and Civil War veterans. In the presidential election, Harrison received 100,000 fewer popular votes than Cleveland, but carried the electoral college 233 to 168. although Harrison had made no political bargains, his supporters had given innumerable pledges upon his behalf. When political boss Matt Quay of Pennsylvania heard that Harrison ascribed his narrow victory to Providence, Quay exclaimed that Harrison would never know "how close a number of men were compelled to approach... the penitentiary to make him President." Harrison was proud of the vigorous foreign policy that he helped shape. The first Pan American Congress met in Washington in 1889, establishing an information center which later became the Pan American Union. At the end of his administration, Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to annex Hawaii; to his disappointment, President Cleveland later withdrew it. Substantial appropriation bills were signed by Harrison for internal improvements, naval expansion, and subsidies for steamship lines. For the first time except in war, Congress appropriated a billion dollars. When critics attacked "the billion-dollar Congress," Speaker Thomas B. Reed replied, "This is a billion-dollar country." President Harrison also signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act "to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies," the first federal act attempting to regulate trusts. The most perplexing domestic problem Harrison faced was the tariff issue. The high tariff rates in effect had created a surplus of money in the Treasury. Low-tariff advocates argued that the surplus was hurting business. Republican leaders in Congress successfully met the challenge. Representative William McKinley and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich framed a still higher tariff bill; some rates were intentionally prohibitive. Harrison tried to make the tariff more acceptable by writing in reciprocity provisions. To cope with the Treasury surplus, the tariff was removed from imported raw sugar; sugar growers within the United States were given two cents a pound bounty on their production. Long before the end of the Harrison Administration, the Treasury surplus had evaporated, and prosperity seemed about to disappear as well. Congressional elections in 1890 went stingingly against the Republicans, and party leaders decided to abandon President Harrison although he had cooperated with Congress on party legislation. Nevertheless, his party renominated him in 1892, but he was defeated by Cleveland. After he left office, Harrison returned to Indianapolis, and married the widowed Mary Dimmick in 1896. A dignified elder statesman, he died in 1901. FIRST LADY'S BIOGRAPHY Caroline Lavinia Scott Harrison The centennial of President Washington's inauguration heightened the nation's interest in its heroic past, and in 1890 Caroline Scott Harrison lent her prestige as first lady to the founding of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She served as its first President General. She took a special interest in the history of the White House, and the mature dignity with which she carried out her duties may overshadow the fun-loving nature that had charmed "Ben" Harrison when they met as teenagers. Born at Oxford, Ohio, in 1832, "Carrie" was the second daughter of Mary Potts Neal and the Reverend Dr. John W. Scott, a Presbyterian minister and founder of the Oxford Female Institute. As her father's pupil—brown-haired, petite, witty—she infatuated the reserved young Ben, then an honor student at Miami University; they were engaged before his graduation and married in 1853. After early years of struggle while he established a law practice in Indianapolis, the Harrisons enjoyed a happy family life interrupted only by the Civil War. Then, while General Harrison became a man of note in his profession, his wife cared for their son and daughter, gave active service to the First Presbyterian Church and to an orphans' home, and extended cordial hospitality to her many friends. Church views to the contrary, Mrs. Harrison saw no harm in private dancing lessons for her daughter—she liked dancing herself. Blessed with considerable artistic talent, she was an accomplished pianist; she especially enjoyed painting for recreation. Illness repeatedly kept her away from Washington's winter social season during her husband's term in the Senate, 1881–1887, and she welcomed their return to private life. However, she moved with poise to the White House in 1889 to continue the gracious way of life she had always created in her own home. During the administration, the Harrisons' daughter, Mary Harrison McKee, her two children, and other relatives lived at the White House. The first lady tried in vain to have the overcrowded mansion enlarged but managed to assure an extensive renovation with up-to-date improvements. She established the collection of china associated with White House history. She worked for local charities as well. With other ladies of progressive views, Mrs. Harrison helped raise funds for the Johns Hopkins University medical school on the condition that it admit women. She gave elegant receptions and dinners. In the winter of 1891–1892, however, she had to battle illness as she tried to fulfill her social obligations. Mrs. Harrison died of tuberculosis at the White House in October 1892, and after services in the East Room, was buried from her own church in Indianapolis. When official mourning ended, Mrs. McKee acted as hostess for her father in the last months of his term. In 1896 President Harrison married his first wife's widowed niece and former secretary, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick; she survived him by nearly 47 years, dying in January 1948. MAJOR EVENTS 1889: Harrison begins expansion of the Navy. 1889: Montana joins the Union. 1889: Washington joins the Union. 1889: South Dakota joins the Union. 1889: North Dakota joins the Union. 1890: Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Intended to make trusts illegal, due to the ambiguity of the language, this act ultimately proved unsuccessful. 1890: Sherman Silver Purchase Act. An agreement by the government to increase its purchase of silver each month. 1890: Wyoming joins the Union. 1890: Idaho joins the Union. 1891: Electricity is installed in White House. 1891: Harrison signs a measure establishing the nine Circuit Courts of Appeals to manage overflow from the Supreme Court. 1892: War with Chile over a brawl between U.S. sailors and Chilean nationals in Valparaiso, Chile, is averted. TRIVIA 1. President Harrison was the grandson of ninth president, William Henry Harrison. 2. Harrison's White House was the first to use electricity but his family would not touch the light switches after Harrison was shocked. 3. Harrison's only luxury was his partiality to high-quality cigars.