President's Day and Ohio

Many reserve President's for thoughts of Washington and Lincoln, who share birthdays this month. Others like to look to the best of those who occupied the White House. But for Ohio, perhaps it is neither of these but instead a look at the quirky and tenuous nature of the state that lays claim to sending the most men to lead the nation (yes, FactCheck weighed in on it in 2008!). Their place in history? Less dubious than for what some are most remembered.

Ohio's first was not really even an Ohioan.  William Henry Harrison was born in Virginia but spent considerable time governing the lands in Indiana and Ohio, even before all were surveyed into states, and gained famed fighting Indians. Primarily in Indiana.  Ohio became a convenient home where he cut his political teeth in Congress.  Harrison's term lasted months, as he gave the longest inaugural address (by far) in a cold March rain without proper warm clothing. He subsequently died from pneumonia that stemmed from cold he picked up after his 8000+ word speech.  His speech was nearly twice as long as any other president in history. 


Rank? Most historians don't even bother ranking him with such a short term.

Ulysses S. Grant may go down as Ohio's greatest military leader, but his presidency was spooked by corruption and incompetency.  Grant was.born here and spent an ordinary childhood in southern Ohio near the river.  But upon entering West Point, Ohio was an afterthought.  Still, being a war hero and all, Ohio is not going to look past that.

Rank? 38th, using an aggregate sampling of historian lists over time.

Rutherford Hayes is Ohio's first Buckeye born and bred president. His political resume shines with elected positions to Congress and Ohio's statehouse as Governor, but his initial presidency carries an asterisk. He did not win the hearts of the majority of Americans.  Having lost the popular vote, Hayes was even trailing in the Electoral College vote with 20 disputed votes left to count, including (surprise?) Florida's count.  A bi-partisan commission ruled in favor of Hayes, handing a hotly contested result to Hayes. 

Rank? Despite the rancor, Hayes comes in at a respectable 25th.

James A Garfield tried really hard to match Harrison for shortest time in office, although not by his choice.  An assassins bullet cut him down before he completed 200 days in office.  Ironically, inventor extraordinaire, Alexander Graham Bell, could have saved the president from death with a new device.  Trying to locate the bullet before it could sever vital organs, they probed around the president with a primitive metal detector, but nobody realized the president was resting on another new invention: a metal coiled spring mattress.  The coils threw off the detector and the inventor went away puzzled how his detector worked on Civil War veterans, but not the president.

Rank?  Some historians rank him around the 30's, but most choose to pass him by.

Benjamin Harrison was grandson to William Henry Harrison, was born in Ohio, but like Grant was gone from Ohio by college, never really to look back.  Nonetheless, We still claim him while at the same time looking down on Virginia's claim his grandfather who similarly wasn't long for Virginia.  Like Hayes before him, Harrison did not win the popular vote but carried the Electoral College over Grover Cleveland (who was from New York, not Ohio).  Interestingly, Cleveland (oh, the irony) won the popular vote in three consecutive elections, but only could sandwich Harrison's time in office.

Rank?  Harrison scores a pedestrian 33rd on the rankings with his one term shot.

William McKinley epitomizes Northeast Ohio's "oh so close" mentality, as many believe McKinley was destined to be among the elite presidents.  Like Garfield, McKinley called Northeast Ohio home: Garfield closer to Cleveland, McKinley to Canton. Like Garfield, McKinley was gunned down by an assassin at the beginning of his second term.  McKinley, also like Garfield, Hayes and Harrison, parlayed Civil War soldier status and state political success into a White House run.  It didn't hurt that his father-in-law was the publisher of the Canton Repository that his wife's grandfather founded.

Rank? Some scholars rate him as high as 10th, the aggregate falls at 20th. But the home he lived in while in Canton is now part of the National First Ladies' Library, the first of its kind.

William Howard Taft is as big as it gets, literally.  At his peak, the 5'11" president weighed in at 340 pounds.  While today that qualifies him as an NFL defensive lineman, in the early 1900's the common man was about 5'8" and 155 pounds.  Taft's presidency was to be the hand-picked legacy of Teddy Roosevelt, who became so disgruntled he ran as a third party candidate against Taft four years later and bled votes from Taft's re-election bid.  For Taft, that was of little matter.  He was later appointed to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice (by Ohioan Warren Harding, no less) where later in life he is said to have cherished this more than his presidency.  But it's the famous stuck-in-the-bathtub incident that most recall of Taft's presidential legacy.

Rank? 22nd for presidency, 1st in late night comedy.

Does Ohio save the best for last?  Nope.

Not a chance.

Warren G Harding supposedly never wanted to be president.  But his wife did.  So she pulled the strings of his political career all the way to the White House.  Harding himself was beset with health issues, having claimed exhaustion at a point earlier in life during his publishing career that had him checking into the Battle Creek Sanitarium.  He would check himself in here several times in his life.  His presidency is oft described as among the worst, with the infamous Teapot Dome scandal (centered on oil reserves and not unlike the Enron scandal in the early 2000's) among the worst.  His death came about somewhat unexpectedly during a whirlwind westward tour.  Speculation as to his death ranges from an early coronary to suicide and poisoning.  Adding fuel to the fire, his wife spent time back in Washington destroying correspondence.  Why?  Perhaps to cover for his affair.  Harding was hardly in love with his wife and had been engaged in a nearly two-decade long affair.  In the 1960s letters from Harding were discovered but have been legally sealed to Ohioans eyes until 2024. Witnesses describe the letters as both naive and salacious. The mysterious death certainly spawned rumors. 
Rank?  His aggregate ranking falls dead last.  Perhaps in 2024 he will suffer a resurgence if those letters are published on Amazon's romance section.

Ohio's mark on the world thus President's day?  Eight presidents, most unremarkable but known for rather remarkable occurrences.  Half died in office, half of them by an assassins bullet.  It gives pause to the next budding politician from the Buckeye state that has eyes on the Oval Office.

- J.