12 Presidents Who Are Not On Mount Rushmore

Presidents Polk, Harrison and Taft.

Part two of a three part series.

The Hardest Working President: James K. Polk (1845-1849)

James Polk is the only Speaker of the House of Representatives to become president. He ran for office on a limited platform, making only a few campaign promises, instead of presenting a major agenda as is common today. His main theme in the campaign was the territorial expansion of the United States, a policy known as "Manifest Destiny," and a promise to reoccupy the Oregon territory, reannex Texas, and acquire California.

Polk was an obsessed workaholic perfectionist and when he became president (he beat Henry Clay by a narrow margin of about 38,000 votes) he set out to fulfill his campaign promises right away. After lengthy negotiations with Great Britain, and without firing a shot, Polk successfully added the Oregon Territory to the United States in 1846. In early 1848, following Mexico's defeat in the Mexican- America War, Polk forced Mexico to sign the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo that added New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah to the United States and fixed the border between Texas and Mexico at the Rio Grande.

Polk's habit of regularly putting in 12- to 18-hour days greatly contributed to his demise. By the time he left the presidency in March 1849, his work habits had taken a great toll on his sickly disposition and frail body (as a child he had been too sick even to attend school). Three months after leaving office, Polk caught cholera and died at the age of 54. Among all the presidents, only JFK and James Garfield, who were both assassinated, passed away at a younger age.

The Shortest Serving President: William Henry Harrison (1841- 1841)

William Henry Harrison gave the United States its first image campaign, since rather than talking about issues, he ran on the notion that he was a man of the people. His commoner message involved hauling log cabins around to show that he was brought up in modest circumstances and providing his audiences with free alcohol. In fact, Harrison was a wealthy aristocrat who grew up on a plantation and owned slaves- his manor in Ohio had 22 rooms and employed many servants. Predictably, the public bought the fabricated image of Harrison, and he won handily.

Harrison presented his inaugural address on March 4, 1841. It was a cold and rainy day, and he refused to wear a hat and a warm winter coat.

After the address he attended a round of receptions in his wet clothing. Catching a cold, which turned into pneumonia, he expired a month later.

Harrison gave the longest inaugural address in U.S. history (it would have been longer, had Daniel Webster not edited it). He talked for almost two hours in the freezing rain. The second oldest president to ever win office- Ronald Reagan was the oldest- "Old Tippecanoe" (Harrison's nickname from the Battle of Tippecanoe that he fought against the Shawnees) was 68 when he died.

The President Who Hated Politics: William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

William Howard Taft never wanted to be president, and he hated politics. What he really wanted to be was a Supreme Court Justice. But he ran for president in 1908 because Teddy Roosevelt, a great admirer of Taft, asked him to.

President Grant

Problems arose as soon as Taft assumed the presidency. He alienated TR by not supporting Roosevelt's progressive policies and he alienated the Conservative wing of the Republican Party by not consistently supporting their programs. When Roosevelt announced that he was going to enter the presidential race of 1912 as a thirdparty candidate, it was obvious to everyone that Taft had no chance of being reelected president.

Taft spent no time campaigning and he was soundly defeated in the presidential election. (Taft received 23 percent of the vote- the worst electoral showing by an incumbent president in U.S history. Roosevelt gained 28 percent of the vote- the best showing by a third-party candidate in American history. Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president, garnering 42 percent of the popular vote.)

Taft happily retired in 1913 and taught law at Yale University. His students loved him and he became an accomplished author of legal works. Then in 1921, his greatest dream came true when President Warren G. Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Taft excelled in his new position, leading fellow Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to comment, "It's very difficult for me to understand how a man who is so good as chief justice could have been so bad as president." Perhaps Brandeis was not aware of Taft's frequently expressed motto- "Politics makes me sick."

The President With the Most Corrupt Administration: Ulysses S Grant (1869-1877)

President Grant was a Civil War hero who reluctantly entered politics at the behest of the Republican Party who wanted him as their presidential candidate. He won his first general election in a walk and, despite the numerous scandals that occurred during his tenure, he was reelected president by even a greater margin. Apparently, the public was not put off by the many shenanigans of the Grant administration, which included the following:

+ Secretary of War William Worth Belnap resigned after defrauding Native Americans out of $100,000.

+ Vice President Schuyler Colfax resigned after he admitted to bribery during his term as Speaker of the House.

+ The president's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was implicated in the Whiskey Ring for swindling the government out of millions in liquor taxes.

+ Secretary of the Navy George Robeson received $300,000 for giving out contracts to preferred businesses.

Grant believed in appointing friends and relatives to highlevel government positions and, sadly, many of these people repaid the favor by taking undue advantage of their offices. Rather than condemning those caught for corruption, Grant, an honest man himself, defended them. This eventually undermined his credibility and reputation, and the Republican Party decided not to back him for a third term in office.

Grant spent the remaining years of his life traveling and writing his autobiography. (He wrote his memoirs because he needed the dough. Grant had allowed his son to invest his money, and when the investments turned sour, he was left penniless.) The book became one of the finest accounts of the Civil War and was finished by Grant a week before he died from throat cancer. Grant's habit of smoking at times more than 20 cigars a day was a precipitating factor in his demise.

For the third installment see next week's edition of the Gazette.