'Benjamin Harrison, VI' (
August 20,
1833 –
March 13,
1901) was the twenty-third
President of the United States, serving one term from
1889 to
1893. He had previously served as a senator from
Indiana. His administration is best known for a series of legislation including the
McKinley Tariff and federal spending that reached one billion dollars.
Democrats attacked the "Billion Dollar Congress" and defeated the
GOP in the
1890 mid-term elections, as well as defeating Harrison's bid for reelection in
1892. He is to date the only president from
Indiana.
Early life and Civil War
A grandson of President
William Henry Harrison and great-grandson of
Benjamin Harrison, V, Benjamin was born on
August 20 1833, in
North Bend,
Hamilton County, Ohio as the second of eight children of
John Scott Harrison (later a U.S.
Congressman from
Ohio) and Elizabeth Ramsey Irwin. He attended
Miami University,
Oxford, Ohio, where he was a member of the fraternity
Phi Delta Theta (later in life, he joined
Delta Chi) and graduated in 1852. He studied law in
Cincinnati, Ohio, then moved to
Indianapolis, Indiana in 1854. He was admitted to the bar and became reporter of the decisions of the
Indiana Supreme Court.
On
October 20 1853, Harrison, 20, married
Caroline Lavinia Scott, 21, in
Oxford, Ohio. The wedding was performed by her father, Rev. John W. Scott. The Harrisons had two children, Russell Benjamin Harrison (
August 12 1854 -
December 13 1936) and Mary "Mamie" Scott Harrison McKee (
April 3 1858 -
October 28 1930). On
June 13 1861, they suffered the tragedy of a miscarriage.
Brig. Gen. Benjamin Harrison
Harrison served in the
Union Army during the
Civil War and was appointed Colonel of the 70th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment in August 1862. The unit performed reconnaissance duty and guarded railroads in
Kentucky and
Tennessee until
Sherman's Atlanta Campaign in 1864. Harrison was
brevetted as a
brigadier general, and commanded a
Brigade at
Resaca,
Cassville,
New Hope Church, Lost Mountain,
Kennesaw Mountain,
Marietta,
Peachtree Creek and
Atlanta. Harrison was later transferred to the
Army of the Cumberland and participated in the Siege of Nashville and the Grand Review in Washington D.C. before mustering out in 1865.
Politics
While in the field in October 1864, he was elected reporter of the
Indiana State Supreme Court and served four years. He was an unsuccessful
Republican candidate for
Governor of Indiana in 1876, being defeated by
James D. Williams. He was appointed a member of the
Mississippi River Commission, in 1879, and elected as a Republican to the
United States Senate, where he served from
March 4,
1881, to
March 4,
1887. He was chairman of the
U.S. Senate Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard (
47th Congress) and
U.S. Senate Committee on Territories (
48th and
49th Congresses).
Presidency 1889-1893
Policies
After beating
John Sherman for the Republican presidential nomination, Harrison was elected President of the United States in 1888 in notoriously fraudulent balloting in New York and Indiana (See
Blocks of Five). In the
Presidential election, Harrison received nearly 100,000 fewer popular votes than incumbent President
Grover 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 Boss
Matthew 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." He was inaugurated on
March 4,
1889, and served through
March 4,
1893. Harrison was also known as the "centennial president" because his inauguration was the
100th anniversary of the inauguration of
George Washington.
For Harrison,
Civil Service reform was a no-win situation. Congress was split so far apart on the issue that agreeing to any measure for one side would alienate the other. The issue became a popular
political football of the time and was immortalized in a cartoon captioned "What can I do when both parties insist on kicking?" (featured below)
Harrison was proud of the vigorous foreign policy which he helped shape. The first
Pan-American Congress met in
Washington, D.C. 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.
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 per pound bounty on their production.
In an attempt to battle trusts and monopolies, Harrison signed into effect the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in order to protect trade and commerce. This was the first Federal act of its kind.
President
Harrison rowed ashore at Wall Street,
April 29,
1889.
Long before the end of the Harrison Administration, the Treasury surplus had evaporated and prosperity seemed about to disappear. Congressional elections in 1890 went 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. Just two weeks earlier, on
October 25,
1892, Harrison's wife, Caroline died after a long battle with
tuberculosis. Their daughter,
Mary Harrison McKee, continued the duties of the
First Lady.
Significant events
★
Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
★
Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890)
★
McKinley Tariff (1890)
★
Ocala Demands (1890)
★
Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)
Administration and Cabinet
President Benjamin Harrison
Supreme Court appointments
Harrison appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
★
David Josiah Brewer - 1890
★
Henry Billings Brown - 1891
★
George Shiras, Jr. - 1892
★
Howell Edmunds Jackson - 1893
States admitted to the Union
★
North Dakota –
November 2,
1889
★
South Dakota –
November 2,
1889
★
Montana –
November 8,
1889
★
Washington –
November 11,
1889
★
Idaho –
July 3,
1890
★
Wyoming –
July 10,
1890
When North and South Dakota were admitted to the Union, Harrison covered the tops of the bills and shuffled them so that he could only see the bottom. Thus, it is impossible to tell which was signed first, and which was the 39th and the 40th.
Harrison also made a push to have Hawaii annexed by the United States, but the annextion was not completed until after Harrison's time in office.
Post-presidency
After he left office, Harrison returned to Indianapolis. He married a widow,
Mary Scott Lord Dimmick on
April 6,
1896 in
New York City. She was also his deceased wife's niece. His two adult children Russell, 41 years old at the time, and Mary "Mamie", 38, did not attend the wedding because they disagreed. Their mother had only died three and a half years earlier. Benjamin and Mary had one child, Elizabeth (
February 21,
1897 -
December 26,
1955), who later married James Blaine Walker, a grandnephew of
James G. Blaine. Their daughter, Jane Harrison Walker, later married Newell Garfield, the great-grandson of President
James A. Garfield and his wife
Lucretia Garfield and the grandson of
James R. Garfield. Harrison went to the
First Peace Conference at
The Hague. He served as an attorney for the Republic of
Venezuela in the boundary dispute between Venezuela and the
United Kingdom in 1900. He also wrote a book entitled This Country of Ours about the federal government and the presidency.
Harrison developed the flu and a bad cold in February 1901. Despite treatment by steam vapor inhalation, Harrison's condition only worsened. Benjamin Harrison eventually died from
influenza and
pneumonia on Wednesday,
March 13,
1901 and is interred in
Crown Hill Cemetery. Incidentially,
Crown Hill Cemetery also holds the remains of three United States Vice-Presidents:
Charles W. Fairbanks,
Thomas A. Hendricks, and
Thomas R. Marshall.
Legacy
★ The Benjamin Harrison Law School in Indianapolis was named in his honor. In 1944,
Indiana University acquired the school and renamed it
Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis.
Benjamin Harrison stamp
★ At Miami University, Harrison Hall houses the political science department and the Harrison Scholarship is school's most prestigious academic award.
[1]
★ In 1942, a United States
Liberty ship named the
SS ''Benjamin Harrison'' was launched. She was torpedoed and scuttled in 1943.
★ A
U.S. Army post,
Fort Benjamin Harrison, was established after Harrison's death in Indianapolis, but it was closed in the 1990s.
★ Harrison Hall, a co-educational dormitory at
Purdue University, is named after President Harrison, who served on the Board of Trustees of Purdue University from
July,
1895 to
March,
1901.
★ The
Benjamin Harrison Memorial Drawbridge over the
James River in
Virginia is one of the longest vertical lift bridges in the
North America at 363
feet at its longest span.
Trivia
★ Benjamin Harrison is the only President who was the grandson of a past President (
William Henry Harrison).
★ From the time when Harrison was born on
August 20,
1833 until the death of Former U.S. President
James Madison on
June 281836, there were a total of 19 Presidents of the United States (Former, Current, and Future) living; which as of
2007 is more than any other time period in U.S. history.
★ Benjamin Harrison might be the first President whose voice was recorded. This recording was originally made on a
phonograph cylinder in 1889 and can be accessed below in the Media section. Some believe
Rutherford B. Hayes was actually the first president, but the cylinder cannot be found.
★ Nicknames such as "Kid Gloves", "The Human Iceberg" and "Little Ben" were mocking titles given by his political rivals. "Little Ben" was also a name so-called by his
Civil War regiment, the 70th Indiana Volunteers.
★ Harrison was the last President to wear a beard while in office but not the last to sport facial hair.
Grover Cleveland,
Theodore Roosevelt and
William Howard Taft all had
moustaches.
★ The
1968,
Walt Disney musical film, ''
The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band'' was about the
United States presidential election of 1888 between Harrison and rival,
Grover Cleveland. In the film, the campaign song, "
Oh, Benjamin Harrison" was modern and not really from that campaign. The song was written by the
Sherman Brothers.
★ Harrison had
electricity installed in the White House for the first time by Edison Electric Company, but he and his wife reportedly would not touch the light switches for fear of
electrocution and would often go to sleep with the lights on.
★ In April 1891, Harrison became the first President to travel across the United States entirely by train.
★ On
June 7,
1892, Harrison became the first President to ever attend a
baseball game.
★ Harrison's roommate at
Miami University,
John Alexander Anderson, became a six-term U.S. Congressman from
Kansas and the second President of
Kansas State University. Harrison appointed him consul general in
Cairo, Egypt.
★ In 1892, Harrison and
Whitelaw Reid formed the only
U.S. presidential ticket composed of candidates that were also alumni of the same university,
Miami University. Like Harrison, Reid also had a building on Miami's campus named for him. Reid Hall was a
dormitory until it was demolished in 2006 to make room for the new
Richard T. Farmer School of Business.
★ Benjamin Harrison was a member of the
Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
★ On
January 28,
2007 Mrs.
Emma Tillman died being the last U.S. citizen alive born during the Harrison administration.
★ Harrison had six states admitted to the
Union during his administration,
South Dakota,
North Dakota,
Montana,
Washington,
Idaho and
Wyoming, the most of any administration since
George Washington.
Media
See also
★
U.S. presidential election, 1888
★
U.S. presidential election, 1892
★
History of the United States (1865-1918)
References
Secondary sources
★ Charles W. Calhoun, ''Benjamin Harrison'' (2005), short biography
★ Davis R. Dewey.
'' National Problems: 1880-1897'' (1907)
★ H. Wayne Morgan, ''From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896'' (1969)
★ Harry J.Sievers, ''Benjamin Harrison'': v1 ''Hoosier Warrior, 1833-1865''; v2: ''Hoosier Statesman From The Civil War To The White House 1865-1888'' (1959); v3: ''Benjamin Harrison. Hoosier President. The White House and After'' (1968) the major scholarly biography
★ Homer E. Socolofsky, ''The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison'' (1987) (ISBN 0-7006-0320-4) detailed narrative of 1888-92
Primary sources
★ Harrison, Benjamin. ''
Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States'' (1892), compiled by Charles Hedges.
★ Harrison, Benjamin. ''
This Country of Ours'' (1897)
★ Albert T. Volwiler, ed.
''The Correspondence between Benjamin Harrison and James G. Blaine, 1882-1893'' (1940)
External links
★
Extensive essay on Benjamin Harrison and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
★
Official White House biography
★
Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
★
Inaugural Address
★
Audio clip of Benjamin Harrison's voice
★
First State of the Union Address of Benjamin Harrison
★
Second State of the Union Address of Benjamin Harrison
★
Third State of the Union Address of Benjamin Harrison
★
Fourth State of the Union Address of Benjamin Harrison
★
The Indianapolis Home of Benjamin Harrison
★
Benjamin Harrison's Health and Medical History
★
★
''Views of an ex-president '' by Benjamin Harrison at archive.org
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