Available:*
Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | 973.87092 A | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
On July 1, 1893, President Grover Cleveland vanished. He boarded a friend's yacht, sailed into the calm blue waters of Long Island Sound, and--poof!--disappeared. He would not be heard from again for five days. What happened during those five days, and in the days and weeks that followed, was so incredible that, even when the truth was finally revealed, many Americans simply would not believe it.
The President Is a Sick Man details an extraordinary but almost unknown chapter in American history: Grover Cleveland's secret cancer surgery and the brazen political cover-up by a politician whose most memorable quote was "Tell the truth." When an enterprising reporter named E. J. Edwards exposed the secret operation, Cleveland denied it. The public believed the "Honest President," and Edwards was dismissed as "a disgrace to journalism." The facts concerning the disappearance of Grover Cleveland that summer were so well concealed that even more than a century later a full and fair account has never been published. Until now.
Author Notes
Matthew Algeo is a public radio reporter. He is the author of Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip , which was one of the Washington Post 's Best Books of 2009, and Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles--"The Steagles"--Saved Pro Football During World War II , which won the 2006 Nelson Ross Award for best pro football historiography.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Despite a reputation for honesty, says Algeo (Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure), "President Grover Cleveland, like FDR and JFK, went to great lengths to hide an illness from the public. In June 1893, having told the New York Times he was going away for a rest, Cleveland secretly boarded a friend's yacht and disappeared for five days as surgeons onboard removed a cancerous tumor from his mouth and much of his upper jaw. Reporters at the Cleveland's Cape Cod summer home became curious when the Oneida failed to arrive. Within weeks, Philadelphia Press reporter E.J. Edwards revealed the truth in "one of the greatest scoops in... American journalism," but the public accepted the official denials. Maligned by rival newspapers, Edwards was branded as "a disgrace to journalism," his career "seemingly tainted forever by allegations that he had faked the story." But he was vindicated in 1917 when the facts were finally revealed in a Saturday Evening Post article. Along with a solid reconstruction of these events, Algeo paints a colorful portrait of political intrigue and journalism during the Gilded Age. B&w photos. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
The cover-up lasted for 25 years, until a surgeon who attended the 1893 operation to excise cancer from President Grover Cleveland's mouth revealed all in a magazine article. But the concealment nearly collapsed immediately when a journalist got the scoop--and vituperation for his veracity. To relate this remarkable story, Algeo brings together biographies of Cleveland, his doctors, and the newspaperman and accounts of medical practice of the period and politics in 1893. Determined to put the dollar on the gold standard, Cleveland was engineering repeal of silver coinage and would not debase his political capital with public fussing about his health. Besides, Algeo notes, people didn't mention the c word in those days. With two rationales for secrecy, Cleveland dropped out of sight for five days, submitting to surgery in a bizarre setting, a yacht in Long Island Sound. Algeo's rousing rendition of the episode is as entertaining about presidential physiology as his Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure (2009) was about presidential travel.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In 1893, during his second term, President Cleveland went on a yacht trip from New York City without providing details to his cabinet, his vice president, the press, or the public. Cleveland, known for honesty, secretly had a cancerous tumor removed from his jaw. Algeo (Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip) makes good use of primary and secondary sources to give general readers a full history of these circumstances, known to presidential and medical historians but to few others. An investigative journalist who sought to reveal the truth was vilified by the skeptical public; one of the participating physicians published the story in 1917, almost ten years after Cleveland's death. Algeo explains the reasons for Cleveland's discretion: the country was in a financial panic, vice president Adlai Stevenson opposed the President on the matter of hard money policies, and Cleveland did not want to lose the upper hand. VERDICT Algeo's colloquial, even punchy account fills out our understanding of a press-shy President, the day's newspaper rivalries, and the role of First Lady Frances Folsom Cleveland. Recommended for those who enjoy popular presidential histories and biographies, the history of U.S. newspaper reporting, and popular medical nonfiction.-Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. ix |
| Part I The Operation | |
| 1 A Rough Spot | p. 5 |
| 2 Big Steve | p. 19 |
| 3 The Dread Disease | p. 39 |
| 4 Dr. Keen | p. 63 |
| 5 The Oneida | p. 81 |
| Part II The Scoop | |
| 6 The Cover-Up | p. 101 |
| 7 The Newspaperman | p. 127 |
| 8 Exposed | p. 141 |
| 9 Liar | p. 155 |
| Part III Vindication | |
| 10 Aftermath | p. 177 |
| 11 The Truth (at Last) | p. 207 |
| 12 Postmortem | p. 217 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 229 |
| Cast of Characters | p. 231 |
| Sources | p. 235 |
| Bibliography | p. 237 |
| Index | p. 243 |
