Intimates of the Clevelands and Folsoms knew that the attachment between the president and Frank was more than friendship. A year before he went to the White House, he obtained permission from Mrs. Folsom to correspond with her daughter. A graduate of Wells College at Aurora, New York, Frances was bright, had an animated wit, unaffected nature, and natural beauty that left the president smitten.
Their courtship was conducted largely by mail and the president included his proposal of marriage in a letter. On May 28, , after Frances and her mother returned from a nine-month tour of Europe, the formal announcement of the engagement was made; five days later, the year old bachelor married year old Frances Folsom in a small White House ceremony.
The public was captivated. On Wednesday, June 2, , at in the evening, cabinet members and their wives, selected government officials and close family friends were ushered into the Blue Room. The state floor was decorated with a profusion of palms, ferns, and flowers from the White House greenhouses. Cleveland and his bride, with no attendants, descended the stairs, crossed the hall and stood beneath the flower-laden chandelier in the Blue Room.
Presbyterian minister, Reverend Byron Sunderlund performed a specially written rite of marriage. The couple then led their guests through the Green Room into the East Room, where they promenaded in the shimmering light of the gas chandeliers. The new Mrs. Cleveland wore an elegant wedding gown of heavy corded satin draped in frail, pearl white, India silk, edged in real orange blossoms.
A pair of silk scarves criss-crossed the front of the dress covering the low Parisian neckline. Her long silk veil was held in place with orange blossoms and seed pearls; attached to the bodice was a foot silk train. After about a half an hour had passed in promenade, the doors of the Cross Hall were opened and the bride and groom led the guests to the State Dining Room for a seated, candlelit dinner.
A three-masted ship made of flowers and christened the Hymen dominated the table. After dinner the bride and groom disappeared to change into street clothes for traveling and left the White House by way of the Blue Room where a coach awaited at the foot of the South Portico stairs. Canvas screens blocked the public's view. Escorted by mounted police, coachman Albert Hawkins drove the carriage through a cheering crowd down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Clevelands traveled by private railroad car to Deer Park Resort in the mountains of western Maryland for their honeymoon. On the same day that the president's engagement was announced, he signed the closing papers on an old stone house in northwest Washington.
He hired Washington architect William Poindexter to remodel the place into a picturesque modern Queen Anne villa, with porches on two levels, dark green woodwork, and a vast roof of wood shingles stained red.
Cleveland fondly called the house "Oak View," but it came to be known as "Red Top" by the press. From the vantage point of the many reporters who staked out the house, all that could be seen was the red roof nestled among old growth trees. The Clevelands summered at Red Top and used it year-round for short retreats from the White House as well. Folsom, Frank's mother. The Washington Post reported that the cottage was decorated with English holly and evergreens, "in one of the rooms a pretty Christmas tree.
Cleveland had been seen buying gifts in the crowded downtown shops; she "gently elbowed her way through, and had a pleasant word for the tired shop-girls. He suggests the creation of a government committee to resolve disputes between labor and capital, making him the first President to do so.
Cleveland vetoes the first of several bills granting military pensions to Civil War Union veterans who had appealed to Congress after their claims were rejected by the Pensions Bureau. Hundreds of these claims are bogus. Cleveland recommends to Congress that the nation accept France's gift of the Statue of Liberty. The gift commemorates the alliance between the two countries during the Revolutionary War. Ellis Island will serve as a welcoming center for the soaring number of immigrants to New York City.
Cleveland announces that he is to marry year-old Frances Folsom, touching off a media frenzy. The AFL grows for two decades; by , its members comprise ten percent of all nonagricultural wageworkers. In , the AFL will back presidential hopeful Woodrow Wilson in an effort to establish political coalitions.
Following complaints about railroad rates and policies, the Interstate Commerce Commission ICC is created to ensure fairness in the management of interstate railroads. Eventually, the scope of the ICC will expand to include all common carriers. The commission is the nation's first independent regulatory agency.
Although Cleveland approves its creation, he has reservations about the agency. Dawes of Massachusetts who proposed it, divided tribal lands of Native Americans into individual allotments and encouraged the assimilation of Native Americans into American society. Her work created a strong general sentiment for reform of the government's policy toward Native Americans.
Senator Dawes proposed the General Allotment Act in to attempt to put an end to the abuses described in Jackson's book. The bill gave acres of land to each family, 80 acres to single adults and 40 acres to orphaned children, and prohibited recipients from selling the land for a period of 25 years.
Indians who renounced their tribal holdings were made eligible for U. The federal government purchased the land remaining after the allotments were made and then sold much of it to non-Indians. President Grover Cleveland was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, and he helped it through Congress. He was a strong believer in assimilation of Indians as a means to improve their living conditions.
The bill passed in the Senate on February 25, , and the House on December In general, the supporters of the Dawes Act including Helen Hunt Jackson genuinely believed that the act would improve the situation in which American Indians found themselves.
Cleveland viewed himself as a protector of the Indians and believed that they would benefit greatly in adopting the norms of American life. The actual effects of the act were far from beneficial for American Indians. The tradition of tribal lands was a central feature of American Indian culture. The Dawes Act dissolved tribal structure and was a general failure in its attempt to assimilate Indians. In addition to creating greater mistrust among Indians for the U. This was, incidentally, one of the law's goals, as American settlers and rail road entrepreneurs had pressured the President to reduce the quantity of land in reservations, feeling that the federal government had provided Native Americans with more land than they needed.
The Dawes Act was a disastrous policy that robbed Native Americans of much of their land and did little to improve their way of life. Cleveland vetoes the Dependent Pension Bill, which would have given a military pension to anyone serving a minimum of ninety days in any war.
He argues that the bill will only encourage fraudulent assertions. Cleveland vetoes the Texas Seed Bill, which was designed to provide relief to drought-stricken farmers.
Cleveland believes the bill oversteps the powers of the federal government. The Tenure of Office Act of is repealed after Cleveland challenges its constitutionality. The act had required that the President gain Senate approval to remove from office any individuals who had received Senate confirmation upon appointment. Congress had passed the bill in order gain control over President Andrew Johnson.
In his annual address to Congress, the President argues against protective tariffs, which he claims are creating an excessive surplus. High tariffs were adopted during the Civil War to protect American industrial interests as a temporary measure; they remained in force, however, after the war. Following Cleveland's message, Representative Roger Q. Mills, a Texas Democrat, introduces a moderate bill that reduces rates and favors the South.
The Senate rejects this bill and tariff reform becomes one of the divisive issues of the presidential election. Cleveland appoints Lucius Q. Lamar of Mississippi to the Supreme Court.
Previously, Lamar serves as Cleveland's secretary of the interior. The Civil Service Commission announces amended rules, prompting Cleveland to respond with a letter containing detailed objections.
Cleveland is a proponent of civil service reform, and by the time he leaves office in , he will have expanded the list of classified positions filled under the merit system from sixteen thousand to twenty-seven thousand. Cleveland appoints Melville W.
Fuller chief justice of the U. Supreme Court. During his second term, the President will come in for significant criticism from political opponents as he will be associated with the conservative decisions of the Fuller Court. Republicans nominate Indiana senator Benjamin Harrison for President. He is the grandson of President William Henry Harrison. New York banker Levi P. Morton serves as Harrison's running mate. Cleveland accepts the Democratic nomination for President.
Ex-Ohio senator Allen G. Thurman is the vice-presidential nominee. The law prohibited Chinese immigrants who returned to China from coming back to the United States. President Chester Arthur passed the first bill limiting Chinese immigration in , and the federal government did not eradicate barriers to Chinese immigration until During the s, racial tension on the West Coast between whites and Chinese laborers put significant pressure on the U.
This pressure resulted in an outright ban on immigrant Chinese laborers in the Chinese Exclusion Act of But this ban was not enough to quell the growing anti-Chinese sentiment, which erupted in riots in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and Tacoma and Seattle, Washington in In , Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard began negotiations with China to produce a treaty banning the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States. The treaty he produced in created a new twenty-year ban on the immigration of Chinese laborers, prohibited Chinese residents of the United States from reentry if they returned to China, and paid an indemnity to China as compensation for Chinese immigrants killed in the riots of Live TV.
This Day In History. History Vault. Native American History. Great Britain. Civil War. Sign Up. Art, Literature, and Film History. Introduction Sketch of President Grover Cleveland. November 13, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
Interstate Commerce Committee. Tarriff reform.
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