Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Harry S Truman: The Coming of the Cold War

By Nicole L. Anslover.

This is a pretty short book (the back of it is just compiled speeches so the actual book is 150 pages) but mostly kept it pretty lively. Some aspects of Truman's career I just find dull to read about no matter what, but the rest of it kept me interested.

Notable bits:

• Even though Truman grew up around southerners, "his actions while in office did not reflect his family's prejudices." He used words I won't repeat in personal letters and didn't exactly hang out with African-Americans, BUT he was a believer in equality for all. A quote from Alonzo Hamby: "He remained a racist only in the narrowest sense of the word and was considerably less so than the vast majority of white Americans in the years after World War II." He was also the first president to address the NAACP.  Since the "Dixiecrats" had already left, he didn't have to worry about pleasing them. 
• He was the last American president to not go to college, but he was really into reading and history.
• Truman met his future wife Bess at Sunday school, and it sounds like he fell instantly in love, but it took her years to get interested ack. It didn't help that her family was wealthy and his wasn't. 
• After they got married, they lived in her childhood home with her mother for their entire married life.. Bess really didn't like Washington and stayed in Independence most of the time, which is why we have so many (love) letters from him to her.
• "A life-long reader of history, Truman knew that a battle between Congress and the president could severely hinder a war effort--and he was certain there would eventually be a war for the US. He feared that Roosevelt would have to haggle with Congress in the same sort of back-and-forth way that Lincoln endured during the Civil War. This, Truman knew, could cost lives. Truman was very open about the fact that history was the main inspiration for his ideas." SOUNDS LIKE NOW. 
• Truman is one of the few men to serve as president who truly never wanted the job. 
• Stalin "seems to like it when I hit him with a hammer." Truman got obviously more aggressive in his dealings with Stalin once he found out they had the bomb. "Churchill said "he told the Russians just where they got on and off and generally bossed the whole meeting."
• Truman kinda liked Stalin and debated whether or not to TELL HIM ABOUT THE BOMB. He decided to say that they had developed a weapon of "unusual destructive force," and Stalin took it pretty casually in a "good news!" sort of way. 
• Truman publicly called the bomb "the greatest thing in history" but privately felt bad about all the deaths. Unfortunately,, bombing one city didn't stop the Japanese government. American planes dropped leaflets on Japanese cities warning people about bombing and telling them to evacuate the cities...that didn't work either. It had to take two cities to get results. 
• Truman compared the Congress he was dealing with to Andrew Johnson's, saying they weren't so bad and they'd impeached the guy...
• Truman was the only one who thought he'd win his election. How? Probably based on his own character and being likeable. 
• MacArthur: really wanted to go to war with the Chinese, was very open about that. 
• Truman USED to like Eisenhower until Eisenhower went Republican and started dissing him. This ended the presumed (on Truman's side, anyway) friendship and Eisenhower ignored everything he said. Eisenhower wouldn't even meet with the Trumans before the ceremony and stayed in the car. 
• Even though Truman left with abysmal job approval ratings, "the public now typically ranks him at seventh or eighth in polls of the greatest presidents." 

Three and a half stars. 

Harry S Truman

By Robert Dallek.

It's another American Presidents book! Notable facts:

• Truman on himself: "Because of my efforts to get along with my associates, I was usually able to get what I wanted." Later he rephrases it as "all the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends all his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway." 
• "His investments in two failed bank enterprises convinced him that however uncertain running for political office might be, it was a more reliable career for a middle-aged man with no record of consistent success at anything, except for his two-year army service." 
• Truman on his term as presiding judge of Jackson County: "I wonder if I did the right thing to put a lot of no account sons of bitches on the payroll and pay other sons of bitches more money for supplies than they were worth in order to satisfy the political powers and save $3,500,000." (written in private.)
• "Truman's nomination for the vice presidency in 1944 is one of those political events shrouded in mystery that will never be entirely unraveled." -the author.
• James MacGregor Burns, biographer of FDR: "The President never...pursued a more Byzantine course than in his handling of this question."
• Truman had ONE LUNCH MEETING with Roosevelt during the campaign AND THAT'S IT. He only saw the guy twice during the fourth term., and Roosevelt didn't say SHIT about oh, the bomb, or him dying, or ANYTHING.
• Why use the bomb? They didn't think Tokyo would surrender otherwise, there were likely to be massive casualties for the Americans if they invaded the islands. "The US military chiefs anticipated between 250,000 and 500,000 American deaths in an invasion, which would be roughly equal to all US troop losses to that point in the war." 
• Truman constantly went around saying he never wanted to be president, "practically every time that I see him and I wish he wouldn't." -Harold Ickes. Truman again: "A man in his right mind would never want to be president if he knew what it entails." However, since he had the job, he'd do the best that he could. And "I think the proper thing to do ... is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell." Whatever was ultimately good for the country as a whole would be best to his political advantage. 
• Truman on the Middle East/Israel/Palestine dilemma: "Jesus Christ couldn't please them when he was on earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?" 
• Despite ALL OF HIS GRUMBLING about the job, he ran for it again and won anyway. Dewey was a stuffed shirt who thought it'd be a slam dunk so he didn't work so hard, LOL.
• Truman vs. MacArthur reminds me somewhat of Lincoln vs. McClellan and Washington vs. Charles Lee, except with a lot less insults out of MacArthur. "I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was...I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President," and also surrounded himself with ass-kissers and "wasn't right in the head." 
• Truman's approval rating fell to 23%. Oy. 

Hm, about three stars? I think I'm feeling brain dead on insight today, read this review instead.

The Personal Librarian

By Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

I'm visiting my mother this weekend and she insisted I read this book (and then bring it back ASAP). It's historical fiction based off the real life of Belle da Costa Greene, the personal librarian/art dealer (pretty much) of J.P. Morgan. Belle sounds like a smart, charming, flirtatious, strategic lady who was extremely good at her job and procuring artwork, and she also (fictionally, at least?) did very well at dealing with a mercurial boss.

Oh yeah, and she was a colored woman who was passing as white the entire time. Her father was a famous Harvard graduate/law dean/political advocate guy who was dedicated to fighting for equality. However, her mother's heart was broken with the overturning of the Civil Rights Act, and she concluded after that that the only way to be safe was to pass as white. Her parents broke up over this and he moved to Russia and knocked up a Japanese lady. (He...went to Russia to find a Japanese lady?!) The rest of the family all passed as white and Belle changed her middle and first names to claim a Portuguese grandmother to explain why she wasn't quite as pale as most of the rest of the family. 

Obviously neither me nor the authors know the full extent of her relationships for real, but they do a sizzling job imagining that Belle and her boss had a very close relationship, but it never went very far romantically because Morgan wanted to keep her around instead of having yet another mistress breakup. And while Belle has the occasional fling here and there, she has an off-and-on relationship with Bernard Berenson, an art expert who also hides his own background and is in a happily open relationship. Bernard is...complicated and hard to root for after awhile, but Belle resolves things on her own regarding that one. She also juggles the urge to not have to disown her colored relatives/be open to someone about her secret periodically, while living in fear every time Morgan gets ticky about something that he's figured it out. She also has a frosty relationship with Morgan's daughter Anne, a closeted lesbian who figures out that Belle is colored and always seems cranky about her. Belle points out when Anne or her girlfriends(!) (score, girl, you had two girlfriends!) get nosey at her that she isn't getting nosey about them, and it sounds like they kinda respect her for that. 

Anyway: people in this book are very memorable and filled in very well, and it feels historically accurate while giving us the feels of what it was like to be there. I highly recommend it. Four and a half stars. 

A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland

By Charles Lachman.

Reading presidential biographies is very much a mixed bag. If a president is particularly dull, I usually drag myself through reading one book on him at minimum, but if I can find more than one that looks interesting, I'll try some more. 

Compare this previous book on Grover Cleveland (a "bare minimum" American Presidents series one) vs. THIS ONE, which is ALL ABOUT THE JUICY HOT GOSS AND HOW AWFUL CLEVELAND IS. Like DAAAAAMN. Most of this is dedicated to the idea that Cleveland is a rapist. Most of this book is about poor Maria Halpin, the presumed baby momma of Cleveland. This book is allllllllll about how Cleveland raped her and it was NOT any kind of consensual affair and how he ruined her entire life. The author reports in the acknowledgements that it was hard to find anything on the situation until he came across the court proceedings of the libel trial of "Ball vs. The New York Evening Post Corporation," in which people were forced to testify under oath about the situation. I suspect it's a bit novel-ish in that some of the dialogue may have been a bit made up (or at least, heck if I know how he would have gotten certain quotes?), but I enjoy that style, so. 

Cleveland seems like an odd duck when it comes to the topic of relationships. Specifically, the guy DID NOT DATE or have lady friends or a boyfriend a la Buchanan, or anything pretty much ever, except for (a) what happened with Maria Halpin and (b) marrying his best friend's daughter that he knew since birth. Until he got married, he was SUPER BACHELOR. It's odd to think that he one-off raped a lady and never had any other kind of sexual history with anybody that we know of (seriously, the only guy I can think of who did that is the fictional Howard Roark...) when in the world I live in, a bad dude who preys on ladies usually has a looooooong history of preying on ladies. They don't do it once out of nowhere and then stop. I absolutely think Cleveland probably did Maria dirty in a lot of ways especially after she got pregnant, but this being a one-time thing is weird. If it's a one time thing, why did he do that once and then never again? Do I think she made it up? I doubt it, since god knows it wasn't any advantage to her to be telling these particular things. I just don't know or get what the hell went on here or what the motivation was for him to presumably rape/knock her up. Seems weird that he raped one time out of nowhere, seems unlikely that Maria would have made it up. This book certainly argues that he done it and it's pretty convincing. 

Supposedly he asked her out to dinner, then escorted her to her rooms, and then legally, well, the law was fucked up because she didn't look beat up, AND he could have squashed an investigation easily. Once she turned up pregnant, she was forced to inform him of the situation and supposedly he said he'd marry her--or so she said, he claimed he never agreed to that and claimed he wasn't sure if he was the father. Supposedly everyone else Maria "slept with" was married.

Maria named the kid Oscar Folsom Cleveland, after Cleveland's best friend/future father-in-law, which is a weird choice on all levels under the circumstances. The kid was farmed out to be adopted elsewhere. Since Maria wouldn't let up, Cleveland focused on her drinking and got her committed to a lunatic asylum. Later SOMEHOW there's a signed agreement in Cleveland's handwriting lowball paying Maria off. Eventually it all makes the media and Cleveland didn't actually defend himself on the topic. HMMMM. But then another reporter/friend of his claimed that Cleveland was heroically taking the blame for some married friend or his or other. Cleveland described what he did as "a policy of not cringing." 

Later, the newspaper that published "A Terrible Tale" (Maria's story) got bought out and dismantled by one of Cleveland's friends. 

It gets even more fun when you compare Cleveland to the other candidate, James Blaine, who got married "by an itinerant preacher" without a proper marriage license, forcing the couple to get legally married while she was pretty great with child. The kid later died, and a newspaper reported that someone violated the kid's headstone birthdate. The author says, "Not for nothing is the presidential election of 1884 called the dirtiest in American history." 

Then there's the fact that he married a girl who called him "Uncle Cleave." Reportedly when his sister was nagging him about getting married yet again, he said, "I'm only waiting for my wife to grow up." EWWWWWWWWWWWW. Oh yeah, and that people reasonably assumed that Cleveland was trying to woo her widowed mother. "I don't see why the papers keep marrying me to old ladies." Emma Folsom's reaction is summed up as "not pleased." 

In other not-fun facts about Cleveland:

• Cleveland paid a guy to do his military service for him and was in denial at how going to war ruined the proxy guy's life/health...though this is basically because the guy pulled something and he was treated really poorly medically speaking. All of this after ten days of service. Later, the guy went to Cleveland for financial help and Cleveland only gave him $5. KEEP IT CLASSY,  CLEVELAND. 
• Cleveland certainly loved getting drunk at a bar, like, a lot.
• As sheriff, he delegated authority to his underling and then went off to entertain himself. He also made a lot of money off the job, to the tune of $60k. 
• I did appreciate how he did man up and execute a guy when he had to for the job--you feel for him reading that section.
• Before getting married, Cleveland had his sister Rose doing First Lady duties. SHE DID NOT LIKE IT. Rose was also a lesbian who wrote a romance novel based on Frances Folsom (oy). 

Overall, if you want a book on juicy old political scandal, this is one for you! Four stars. 

Eva Peron

By Alicia Dojovne Ortiz.

Fun facts about Eva (or not-so-fun ones) I got out of this book.

• Eva was totally willing to kiss/hug/be in contact with ill people even if it was risky to herself. She was more worried about offending them than protecting herself from illness. 
• The book is pretty blunt about how Eva picked her various lovers for career advantage and/or financial support in between jobs.
• One catty remark is that she was an expensive mistress because she was always sick. 
• She apparently had a dirty mouth and "insulted only important men." 
• Eva playing Catherine of Russia on the radio is described as "a daily pleasure, this nasal voice who played the empress with rural tango accents! It was hilarious."
• Peron: "He was a forty-eight-year-old widower who loved young girls. Evita, who was twenty-four, could still be mistaken for a doll, and Peron was accomplished in the role of the paternal male." Ewwwww.
• Peron has "A certain stoutness, just enough to make the women swoon." WTF? The author also seems to think he was quite hot on a horse. 
• Someone says, "Eva was asexual...he too was not very sexual. This marriage united two wills, wo passions for power. It was not a marriage for love." 

Waaaaaaaait a minute, all I hear about is how Eva is such a whore and sleeping with dudes for money/jobs/power, but she's asexual? Peron is having teenage girls as mistresses, but HE's asexual?!?! 

• It's the author's opinion that Peron was basically incapable of love and she says things like "Peron certainly loved Eva, at least within the limits of his capacity for love....he had feelings for her that were close to love." 
• Eva considered herself a "dual personality," according to her designer. She said as an actress, he could give her sequins and poufs, but as "what the Big Shot wants me to be, a political figure," she got suits.
• Eva did find Peron annoying and would say so. "The more the real Peron irritated her, the more the ideal Peron claimed her heart. This is the Peron she loved to the point of adoration and sacrifice. It is her gratitude to this Peron, the redeemer who had chosen, purified, and saved her, that drove Eva to a cancerous self-destruction, all while she was singing canticles." The author thinks Eva loved his image more than "his thick body and his chorizo sandwiches."
• Peron on Jews after WWII: "If the Jews are living here, I can neither kill them nor chase them away. The only solution is to let them work within our community." Which is to say, if the Germans couldn't take them out... OY.
• "When his army colleagues, with quivering mustaches and severe brows, explained to him that his liaison with an actress was not highly regarded, Peron opened his penguin arms and responded, "What, would you prefer that I have a relationship with an actor?" LOL. 
• "for Evita, jewelry was reassurance, visible proof that she was loved. Jewels calmed her as food calms others. Since she could not eat for fear she would get fat, she binged on shiny candy: mint emeralds, strawberry rubies....Evita tasted her jewels; she actually sucked on them and bit them."
• When someone tried to tell her to wear less jewelry, she said, "The poor like to see me be beautiful. They do not want to be protected by a poorly dressed woman. You see, they dream about me. How can I let them down?" 
• A tailor of hers got sent out to find her a "simple brown and green necklace" to wear to a Spanish Embassy party. He found one, Evita nibbled on it...and it turned out to be PAINTED NOODLES that turned her mouth green and brown. She ripped the dude a new one after that. He hadn't noticed.
• For those who doubt that she loved him, there's a letter she wrote him before flying saying that she idolized him even though she may not be able to show him all she feels. "I have fought many hardships in my life for my ambition to be somebody. I suffered a great deal, but then you came along and you made me so happy that I feel like I am dreaming."
• Eva wanted "to have a place in history." She also claimed to be unmoved by art, but "I am only moved by the people." Doing things for the poor is what made her cry.
•  Eva would get up in the middle of the night and classify and pack donated objects to the poor. She'd also check on people in the middle of the night to see if they were okay. She got 12k letters a day, like Santa. "Those people are my work. I am nothing, my work is everything." She'd give them more than they asked for, remembering what it was like to be poor herself. She'd bring kids to the house and clean them up too. She'd kiss lepers and other illnesses and caught other people's lice. "I want to help people today, not tomorrow. And that is how I want to die."
• Most people agree that Peron was avoiding his dying wife and freaked the hell out when she made her way to his room one night, yelling "Get this out of here!" shudders People wouldn't tell her she was dying, either. 
• I'm not going to recount the extreme grossness of what people did to Eva's body. Like EWWWWWWW. 

Overall, I thought this was interesting, but I've been in the show "Evita" lately and I have other research nerds telling me fun facts about Eva's lobotomy, Peron's HPV giving 2 out of 3 wives cancer, all the body moving shenanigans. And I'm all um....I feel like this author perhaps left out some dirt here? That might have been good to know? I also think she sometimes has some really odd/opposite takes on things, like Eva being a lady who dated around a lot for money but didn't like sex at the same time, and whether or not Eva and Peron were an actual love match. Huh? So I think that's weird.

But that said, I feel like she's portrayed pretty well on good and bad points for the most part, especially how she felt about helping the poor. Despite Che yelling, "SHE DID NOTHING FOR YEARS!" in Evita, I disagree. I think she earned her spot in history, honestly. 

Overall, I think I'm giving it 3.5 stars. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grover Cleveland

By Henry F. Graff.

I have been dragging butt on my presidential biographies and at some point the library wants them back (circa June 30), so I need to get on it. Then I remembered "oh yeah, I have this book I haven't finished yet and it's been ages." So I finished it. Let's see what stood out about it enough for me to bookmark it, eh?

• Cleveland's being single for so long apparently made some people think he was gay and/or prejudiced against the married. 
• "It did not seem right or logical, he pointed out, that the paving, lighting, and cleaning of the streets should depend on the party affiliation of the working people." Good point.
• As mayor of Buffalo, he exposed a plot to overcharge the city $100,000 on a road-construction project, and he didn't go around greasing palms. He wouldn't permit the city to use money to celebrate Civil War dead, but did join in fundraising for it. 
• Cleveland had no truck with Roscoe Conkling, so cheers to him for that. 
• Quote from Cleveland: "It is no credit to me to do right. I am under no temptation to do wrong." 
• Then there's the Maria Halpin thing. I've got a much dishier book on the topic (rather horrifying) so I'll go into that later, This book claims that "Possibly Cleveland was seduced as well as the seducer," that Cleveland had Maria committed to a mental asylum and the kid to an orphan's asylum.  People knew about Cleveland's involvement, and that she named the kid after his best friend (weird choice there). This book claims that possibly Maria didn't know who the father was and just picked Cleveland, and hints that maybe it was the best friend's kid? 
• After a nasty article came out about the whole thing, Cleveland's response was to say "Tell the truth." Um, what was that? 
• Yeah, also creepy was his marrying his best friend's kid. "He had gazed on her lovingly from the day of her birth. Indeed, he had bought her her first baby carriage. No novelist could have concocted such a scenario." EWWWWWWWWWWWW.
• "The president-elect had never before set foot in Washington." 
• "One can only wonder as to what people thought they had accomplished in putting Cleveland in office. He had no "program" except a commitment to honesty and efficiency and an intention to staff his administration with worthy people from the Democratic ranks. He told Bissell that he viewed the four years to come "as a dreadful self-afflicted penance for the good of my country. I see no pleasure in it and no satisfaction, only a hope that I may be of service." Author's commentary: "Since no man has ever been dragged against his will into service as president, it may be safely assumed that the "martyrdom" Cleveland was about to suffer was pose, not truly his sentiment. He believed that Divine Providence had made him president," and also decided that "henceforth I must have no friends."
• "Close friends said he could tell a joke well, and that he was an amusing mimic of other politicians. The plain truth was that Cleveland had no gift for public relations." 
• Cleveland "was the last president who refused to give working space to reporters." 
• Frances was a much more personable person than her husband and she was very sociable.
• He was a dull speaker, a better writer, had a temper, and sometimes had "plain grossness." I'm afraid to ask.
• The joys of Benjamin Harrison: short, wore a high hat. "Where the Democrats sang: "His Grandfather's Hat--It's Too Big For Ben," the Republicans rejoined: "The Same Old Hat--It Fits Ben Just Right." "Still, nothing could make him a popular figure. Even colleagues regarded him as being "cold as an iceberg." Tom Platt once declared him to be "as glacial as a Siberian stripped of his fur."
• From the epilogue: "Cleveland lives in the national memory today almost exclusively as the president who had two nonconsecutive terms of office. He deserves a better fate, for he was once revered by millions of his contemporaries for genuine merits, especially integrity...The public understood that what the nation required, above all, was not brilliance but the cleansing honesty and straightforwardness that he provided." 

Three stars. Mildly interesting in reskimming it, but I do kinda wonder about some of the stuff said regarding Maria Halpin. But more on that later. 

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

By Alexis Coe.

The author, a lady, notes that her entire personal library of books on Washington were all written by men, and finds out that no woman had written an adult biography of him in more than 40 years. Stories like this have been by men, about men, for men, with women/people of color in supporting roles, and women biographers try to focus on others in the story. She said that when telling people what she was working on, they assumed it was about his wife/marriage. "No. It's a biography. Like a man would write."

She said she got interested in Washington when reading between the lines of famous biographies like Chernow's. "At first, I found the male historians' fixation on his manliness entertaining, but the sheer repetition of their narratives needled me. She has amusing snark about how Washington's thighs drive men wild, and biographies have a stiff photo of his head or posing on a horse, a "visual coffin of a cover with a verbal coffin of a title, often adhering to the same stale format." Titles are something like "George Washington: A Biography, George Washington, A Life, George Washington, A President." "With titles this stodgy, presidential biographies will always appear to be as if they are for men of a certain age, intended to be purchased on Presidents' or Father's Day." She calls the reviewers the "Thigh Men" who write giant books (I note that hers is around 250ish) and constantly go on about how manly Washington is. She's amused at how people focus on how he wasn't a biological father, but nobody really seemed to care at the time about that. 

The author also notes that Mary Washington, his mother, is portrayed as a total shrew in a lot of books, and she dubs Chernow's descriptions as "creative writing." There is a chart of all of the bad words he uses about her in the book. God forbid the woman not let her 14-year-old join the navy, apparently, what with the rumors of disease, deprivation and death that went on there. But the author gives her respect for losing a lot of her family members, losing her husband at a young age, and plugging along anyway. Later, she mentions that when Mary needed money, George offered to have her move in, but warned her that life at Mount Vernon "may be compared to a well resorted tavern," where you always needed to be dressed for company or hide in her room to avoid people. I guess she didn't move in :P 

Let me quote from the start of chapter 5: "Great love stories don't often begin with dysentery. But had George Washington not contracted the disease during his final year of British military service, he would never have met Martha Dandridge Custis."  LOL. Anyway, he was getting a checkup from the doctor and decided to check out the social scene. Later, we have "after a couple of failed attempts, Washington finally got the jackass he'd always wanted" (re: mule breeding). 

I do enjoy how the author put short, informative charts in throughout the book to make some more facts more digestible, such as explaining briefly about how Washington's battles went during the Revolutionary War and how he lost more than he won. Washington "became the only president to take up arms against his own citizens" during the Whiskey Rebellion. He also basically started the French and Indian War. Oops. 

I'm also amused at the "Frenemies" chapter, which starts out with a note saying that when Washington became president, he was beloved and by the end of his terms, he was estranged from most of his original cabinet members and future presidents, with "before and after" quotes about him from said frenemies. Thomas Paine in particular had good reason to be vengeful. And during his second term, the House of Representatives refused in 1796 to wish him well for his birthday :P  I'm also amused at the letters Washington wrote to Jefferson and Hamilton trying to get them to settle down. Hamilton said he'd try to improve the situation, Jefferson quit after writing 3,000 words of rebuttal :P I'm amused at the remark about how Jefferson never realized why he always lost when he went up against Hamilton--Washington and Hamilton shared the same worldview and Hamilton was very good at articulating that. 

I've always felt kind of bad that George's stepson Jacky and stepgrandson Wash were basically rich flaky layabouts with no ambition, but I did enjoy the letter from Jacky thanking Washington for being such a good guardian and that few had experienced such attention and care from real parents as he has. Wash was even worse, always hitting up for money and wanting to quit school. 

Washington and his slaves were...kinda sleazy/hinky at times. On the one hand, we're told that he did request the wife of one of his slaves to be brought to him, even though  Washington clearly didn't like the wife. On the other hand, once he found out that the law in Philadelphia freed slaves after they lived there for six months, he'd ship his slaves in and out. Washington was always land rich and cash poor and while he didn't go around buying slaves, a good chunk of them were from his wife's first husband's estate and he'd have to pay for them if they escaped. I note that a favorite slave, Hercules, originally indicated he didn't ever plan to run, but changed his mind after he got screwed out of his chef's job. While Washington could have freed his own slaves individually, he'd have to pay for the support of anyone he freed, and he couldn't afford it. Attempts at selling the land didn't go well--either there were no takers, or he didn't like the few there were. Also, his slaves had intermarried with the Custis slaves, and the Custis slaves weren't getting freed by that family. Finally, he put it in his will that his slaves would get freed after Martha's death--which of course made her realize her own life was at stake. 

Anyway, this is a fun, shorter read, and I did enjoy the charts and snark on other biographers. If you're interested in Washington but can't do Chernow or any other "thigh men," pick this one up. I kind of feel like it gets a little slower/duller as time goes on, but that's probably how one would describe how his life went IRL as well there. Three and a half stars. 

Warren G. Harding

By John W. Dean.

Another American Presidents series book. This is pretty short, like the rest of the series, and doesn't really dwell on Harding's sex scandals, bummer. It does talk more about the scandals that erupted after his death, but mostly indicates that wasn't on him. I'm also quite impressed with his wife, Florence, and her fierceness.

What really stood out for me was that Florence's dad, Amos Kling, was (a) rather a dick, and (b) had a hate on for Harding, who was a newspaper publisher at the time. Amos was the richest man in town and acted accordingly. Harding attacked him in the paper, Amos reacted about as you'd expect on that. "Capulet-and-Montague love affair" was used, har har.

Florence wasn't born a boy but got treated like one anyway, and he dominated the heck out of her and she wanted the heck OUT of that. He'd lock her out after curfew, she'd sleep elsewhere...and finally got pregnant by the town's "youngest drunk." They "eloped" and left town but never married legally, apparently, and of course the baby daddy eventually flaked and bailed, as they do. Right before Christmas Eve, Florence had to cave in, beg for a free train ride home, and go back to Marion (the town)..by which I mean, she literally BROKE INTO AN EMPTY HOUSE to sleep that night, with the baby, because she knew darned well he wouldn't let her in even for Christmas. She went to live with a friend instead and got help from others instead. Eventually her father made her an offer to adopt the boy, which she let him do. 

Naturally, Daddy-o lost it when he found out who his daughter was dating next, and ALSO Daddy-o was a racist and there were rumors that Harding wasn't white. I guess this rumor came about because the family lived by some African-Americans?  Amos did call Harding the n-bomb word around town to pressure her into breaking up with him (since claiming he'd disinherit her didn't do the trick...doesn't say why, I assume Florence assumed she was disinherited anyway so why worry about it?). Harding threatened to beat Amos's ass for that one, but it never got that far. He also tried to screw Harding over in business. The couple of course eloped. Harding's quote on the whole thing was that he'd rather have his father-in-law's hatred because "as it is, he now lets me alone. If he were friendly, he would want to tell me how to run my business." We're also told that "no bond was stronger than their mutual dislike of Florence's father, and their determination to show him that they could succeed in spite of his wishes and efforts to the contrary."  I do note that eventually Amos caved in and started liking his son-in-law. Which is to say, he still called Harding an n-bomb, but a "smart" (n-bomb.). He even wrote Harding a letter of apology! 

Florence was also tough as nails, and she was called "the Boss" and "the Duchess," and Harding liked to spend a lot of time out of town. At one point Harding didn't win any delegates in Indiana while running for re-election and when Harding was about to quit running for president, Florence grabbed the phone and said they were in it until hell froze over. Florence also went to a professional psychic who told her that her husband would win, but would die in office as president. "Florence never told her husband of these predictions because he didn't believe in such nonsense." 

I did enjoy the hate-on that H.L. Mencken had for Harding, including his elaborate descriptions as to how bad his speeches were, "wet sponges," and "stale bean soup," and "balder and dash." And after his death, "What did he accomplish in life? He became President....He was, from first to last, an obscure man, even as President. No salient piece of legislation bears his name. He led no great national movement. He solved no great public problem. He said nothing arresting and memorable." 

He did have affairs with Carrie Phillips and later supposedly knocked up Nan Britton, who wrote a book about it that H.L. Mencken gave a rave review to :P However, this author notes that Nan Briton never did establish the paternity of her child and it sounds like she made up a lot of details and/or getting dish from Carrie Phillips's daughter. Oh yeah, and that Harding was sterile. Attempts to track down the supposed president's daughter to check her DNA apparently didn't happen because the lady disappeared after the 1960's. The author notes he was unable to find her and hopes the family will reach out to him, hah hah. 

Anyway, this was pretty entertaining on the personal dish, so three and a half stars from me. 

Harding golfed, but badly, and he didn't want that in the newspapers. When reporters asked how to deal with the situation if any news happened while he golfed, Harding said if he broke 100, they could report it. LOL.

While Wilson was racist, Harding hired more African-Americans to posts, or it sounds like he did as much as he was legally allowed to, anyway. 

I'm not sure I'm smart enough to understand all the scandals that went on under Harding's nose, but I did like his quote about his friends were the ones who kept him up walking the floor nights, not his enemies. A few months after his death, things started exploding. "The fact that Harding had done nothing wrong and had not been involved in any criminal activities became irrelevant....Harding's reputation became inseparable from the bad apples in his administration. Their disgrace became his disgrace. All that he had done well was attributed to others, from his wife to the able men with whom he had surrounded himself." I guess it didn't help that his wife burned his papers, so "writers felt free to write the Harding history as they wished, and they did." 

Eleanor

By David Michaelis.

Overall I liked this, but it's a loooooooooong book to get through and at this point the library is demanding the book back, so I dragged myself through 300+ pages when I woke up too early this morning + read through lunch at work. Huzzah to me for plugging away on that one, I think.

 

One thing I notice about this book, after having read a bunch of biographies of Eleanor and FDR pretty recently, is that it has some dish (mostly on racist moments, sigh, and the medical mishandlings of Eleanor's death) I haven't read elsewhere, but seems to be kind of short on relationship stuff. Eleanor's various inamoratos and inamoratas are brought onstage and a lot of them then kind of just...drift off and we never hear what happens to these people again, which I think seems kind of like an omission. I admittedly know what happened with say, Nancy Cook, but he doesn't get into how people are in and out of her life and why? Strange.

 

That said, I was quite touched at the end of the book when the author wrote about meeting her at age 4, it's freaking adorable.

 

Interesting details:

 

* Eleanor's own mother called her plain to her face, as well as "Granny." What a bitch.

* "It took Eleanor two weeks to get her calling routine to six minutes."

* Franklin's boss at the Navy apparently thought "only Negroes could wait on their superiors." With a horrifying direct quote of "Whom else could one kick?" Eleanor was horrified.

* Racism is a fun one in this book (she says sarcastically). Eleanor's mentioned as having racist moments--she used to not like Jews too much, used the word "darky" a few times and got called out on it--but she got over it and made friends with people of other races. Franklin, uh...nope. Like, dude, ugh. He didn't care if anyone got lynched unless they were white, and Thurgood Marshall inadvertently heard him dropping the n-bomb. YEEEEEEEESH.

* Added bonus: one of Eleanor's boyfriends, Earl Miller, thought the Nordic race was superior. Ughhhhh.

* I am, however, quite proud of the time Eleanor objected to a segregated seating by plopping her seat in the aisle, straight on the dividing line. Nobody could dare to make her move. She also disagreed with the relocation camps.

* Quote from Franklin: "It would be wonderful to be a war president of the United States."

* I loved the whole section about knitting (the Fiber Nation podcast covers this) and how Eleanor got involved in that campaign. I was less thrilled to find out that when Eleanor refused to take Lucy Mercer's money for the knitting program, Franklin HAD THE WHOLE PROGRAM DISBANDED. Dude, so shitty.

* Eleanor: "I have no talents, no experience, no training for anything."

* At one point Franklin is "declared responsible" for using raw recruits to entrap homosexual citizens, which he rebuts. This was made public and considered shameful. Franklin apparently blamed this on getting scapegoated by a senator. Me: "the hell?"

* After Franklin got polio, their youngest kid John said, "From then on, I had no parents." He was five.

* "The children, visiting, took their father's closeness with Missy "as a fact of life." Elliot registered the barest of mild surprise when he found Missy on Franklin's lap in the main stateroom. As for her wearing only a bathrobe, "it was no great shock to discover that Missy shared a familial life in all aspects with Father."

* Eleanor: "Either you must learn to allow someone else to meet the need, without bitterness or envy, or somehow you must make yourself learn to meet it."

* Eleanor to Franklin on dealing with his mother--the author notes that they've already had a failed marriage, dead child and crippling disease--"Sometimes I think constant irritation is worse for one than real tragedy."

* Add another to the list of men Eleanor seemed to have inordinate affection for: her son-in-law John Boettiger, who "understands" his relationship with her daughter. John claims that he and Anna "FEEL each others' thoughts." However, someone finds out from some of John's former colleagues that he's emotionally unstable and in addition to warning Anna about this, GIVES ANNA A GUN, saying "You may need this sometime." Daaaaaaaaamn.

* "FDR's skill was the handling of human beings. He could get people to do what he wanted them to do by making them feel free to do as their own best judgment dictated, which he then happily betrayed if another point of view served his larger purpose."

* When the king and queen of England came to dinner, hosted by Sara, at one point the Limoges china is piled up too much, the table tips over and an avalanche of dishes falls. Eleanor's sister-in-law Betty grumbles, "I do hope that wasn't MY china." The king and queen are unfazed.

Sara wanted Eleanor to keep it a deep dark family secret, but Franklin and Eleanor disagreed, and she wrote the story in her column so that everyone else would know that nothing that happens to them while host/essing could be as bad!

Later, while visiting in a village in Israel, a kid drops a lemonade pitcher and Eleanor helps clean it up and comforts the kid, telling him this story and says, "You mustn't worry, son, it happens everywhere."

* Franklin "seemed to have no bond to people, not even his children." 

* While at the Palais de Nations chambers, she said she'd love to slide on those floors. Later, she got to!

* Eleanor: "You ought to know me well enough to know that I like young men."

* Eleanor to a protege of hers: "Well, Allard, you must remember you can't flush all the toilets."

* Eleanor got backed into by a car while trying to cross the street, which she blamed on herself--also she noticed that the guy was young, African-American, and she didn't want him to get into trouble for hitting her. She goes home and gets patched up by her doctor/roommate, then headed out in a rainstorm to a fundraiser. "When they saw the condition I was in at the dinner, they raised more money!"

* Later on she shows up on a rainy night for the Kennedy inauguration party. The hostess invited 100 people, and nobody came but Eleanor, "covered with plastic bags."

* Eleanor was giving a speech for Ed Koch and a crowd gathered, blocking a cab. People told the cabbie to stop honking and the cabbie said he had a fare and the guy was in a hurry. Upon finding out the speaker was Eleanor, the cabbie got out of the car, let his fare sit there, and listened to the rest of the speech. Awwwwww.

* In the acknowledgements, the author said he met Eleanor at age four and asked her for Juicy Fruit. "I have no recollection of anything she said, I was held close by an intensely noticing gaze, which was so full of goodwill, it seemed to brim out of her eyes as light. I had never seen that: actual goodness flowing out of a human being and only long afterward realized how fortunate I was to have felt it full in the face at four." AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

 

Four stars. 

Coolidge

By Robert Sobel.

Is there anything interesting to say about Coolidge? I guess what stands out to me after 400 pages is that he had it pretty cushy. He governed during a period of time that was pretty peaceful.. He managed to nip out JUST before the depression struck, no major war things going on, he had a "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" sorta 'tude. I guess things looked pretty cool to Cooldge.

The other mysteries of this guy: how was he popular enough to get elected? And how did he manage to get married when I can't? (I have this thought about a LOT of presidents, especially the most boring/unpleasant ones.) The opening quote says that Coolidge's personality was apparently so negative that it at once challenged human interest." 

Standout things (such as they are):

• He disliked Prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan and racism in general, but would he do anything about stuff like that? Mmm, nope. 
• "Those who think he was humorless will be surprised to learn that he was selected by his graduating class to deliver the Grove Oration, which by tradition had to be amusing." He said he delivered it in a monotone, which people found hilarious. 
• Quote from a nameless reporter: "You just have confidence in Coolidge. He may not do what you want him to do, he may not do what you think he ought to do, but you know he's doing his best to do right." Author: "Of all our presidents, Coolidge was the one who couldn't care less what we thought of him--while taking pains to make sure his reputation was safeguarded." 
• The author: "Coolidge scholars will find some fresh interpretations in these pages but no major revelations." and "This book is no based on original research." SO WHY AM I READING THIS, HMMMM?
• The author notes that Coolidge destroyed his private papers, which is usually an indicator of THIS IS GONNA BE DULL, y'all.
• His wife Grace said he once told her, "I am as much interested in human beings as one could possibly be, but it is desperately hard for me to show it." 
• He didn't make it into a fraternity originally, which shocked him but not me. A classmate said, "A drabber, more colorless boy I never knew than Calvin Coolidge when he came to Amherst. He was a perfect enigma to us all. He attended class regularly, but did not show any great interest." 
• Later he did get recruited to join a new fraternity as a senior. He wasn't much of a joiner.
• He did get a reputation for public speaking in college, though. 
• "The wonder of Coolidge was that he accomplished all he did without the usual trappings of politicians. He meant to be accepted on his own terms, and he was."
• Coolidge was hired at a law firm because, according to one of the partners, "I liked to laugh and Calvin Coolidge was very funny."
• Grace Coolidge: "I have to talk for two."
• "What a lively, inquisitive person like Grace Goodhue saw in Coolidge is difficult to imagine."
• On nominating Harding: "There aren't any first-raters this year. This ain't 1880 or any 1904; we haven't any John Sherman or Theodore Roosevelt; we got a lot of second-raters and Warren Harding is the best of the second-raters." Explains a lot. 
• Someone calls in Harding to ask him if he has any skeletons in his closet: Well, let's see, illigitimate child, another girlfriend, and "there were rumors one of Harding's ancestors was black." "Harding asked for a few minutes to think it over, then said he was clean." LOLOLOLOLOL GOOD GOD, DUDE. I haven't read a Harding biography yet because they don't have any at the town library and I haven't hit the college one since You Know When, but I really look forward to the ridiculousness of Harding.
• However, when nominating Coolidge, "several reporters wrote that the applause was louder than the cheers that had come with the Harding nomination."
• The Boston Globe said, "Calvin Coolidge was the first vice president in a hundred years who was not wished on the country; the country wished him on the Republican Party." Oh my.
• Coolidge believed in not pursuing office, but waiting until it came to him. Seemed to work!
• Quote from someone else: "Everything comes along to him in a most uncanny and mysterious way."
• Got mistaken by a fire marshal at a hotel for being vice president--of the hotel. 
• Coolidge on the Senate: "the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do." 
• Coolidge didn't have a phone on his desk and never used the one in a booth outside of his office, saying phone calls weren't private and "it isn't in keeping with the dignity of the office."
• This book notes that Coolidge cultivated a ...well, very quiet persona. "The Coolidge archives have many pictures of him laughing heartily, but the press rarely used these; newspapers seemed to prefer the photographs in which he looked blandly and blankly out on the world. Of course, that was the image the president had deliberately fixed on reporters who covered him."
• Coolidge: "Whenever I do indulge my sense of humor, it always gets me into trouble."
• He also "did not suffer fools gladly, wanted to save time, and he found silence was the best way to accomplish this" "Many times I only say 'yes' or 'no' to people. Even that is too much. It winds them up for twenty minutes more." Also, "If you keep dead-still they will run down in three or four minutes. If you even cough or smile they will start up all over again." 
• Why yes, there IS a "Coolidge Wit and Wisdom" book that someone published! Will Rogers said "I bet he wasted more humor on folks than almost anybody."
• The joke about Coolidge describing a church sermon as about "sin" and "he's against it" wasn't true, but he said "It would be better if it were true."
• Coolidge disliked Hoover, who he called "Wonder Boy," said Hoover "gave me nothing but advice, and all of it bad." At one point Coolidge told him that if you see ten troubles coming down the road, nine of them will run into the ditch before they reach you. Hoover agreed, but said he disliked being unprepared for the tenth.
• Coolidge: "The president shouldn't do too much, and he shouldn't know too much." Specifically that the president can't resign if he's involved in someone else's mistake. Author's snark: "One can only wonder whether presidents in the 1970's and afterward have considered this matter." LOL.
• A small boy came by the White House to give his consolations on Coolidge's son's death, and the guy who brought the kid in was told "Whenever a boy wants to see me, always bring him in."
• "Coolidge's campaign was both unusual and dull." LOL.
• Coolidge's opponent: "What I wanted was for Coolidge to say something. I didn't care what it was, jus so I had someone to debate with. He never opened his mouth."
• Coolidge: "I don't recall any candidate for president that ever injured himself very much by not talking." 
• "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" was a theme with him. 
• There's debate as to whether or not Coolidge had any idea or not if a depression was coming. 
• "I would like to be known as a former president who tried to mind his own business."
• Sherwin Lawrence Cook tried to rank presidents, putting Coolidge solidly in second tier, not leading the pack but not as bad as Polk or Fillmore. High praise?
• Coolidge's autobiography stops after he wins his presidential election. 

Overall, three and a half stars. Could have used more humor anecdotes, but I suppose this is as comprehensive as you get with this guy.