Dreamers and Deceivers (3 page)

Bryant:
That is all.

Gray Gables, Massachusetts

July 7, 1893

7:15
P.M.

Bryant’s failure to unequivocally deny that an operation had been performed led to a feeding frenzy in the press. In an effort to alleviate the growing suspicions, the doctor quickly assembled the reporters. “The president is absolutely free from cancer or malignant growth of any description,” he told them. “No operation has been performed, except that a bad tooth was extracted.” Bryant categorically denied that any interview with a United Press reporter had taken place the night before.

But it was too late. By midafternoon, the number of reporters staying at Walker’s Hotel near Buzzards Bay had swelled from eight to fifty. Each of them was demanding answers to the question of what exactly the president of the United States had been doing for four unexplained days at sea.

As Secretary of War Lamont entered a large barn on the Gray Gables grounds, he felt an enormous sense of responsibility. Assembled there were the fifty reporters he had asked to gather for a 7:00
P.M.
press conference that was intended to answer their questions once and for all.

Lamont had been willing to reprise his role as Cleveland’s press secretary, not because he relished a return to the lion’s den, but because he believed no one else was up to the task. If he could convince reporters that the president’s health problems were nothing worse than
rheumatism and a toothache, Cleveland would retain the public’s confidence. More important, he would still be able to pressure Congress into repealing the Silver Purchase Act. On the other hand, if the reporters did not leave the barn satisfied that the rumors of cancer surgery were false, Cleveland’s reputation, and his political capital, would be gone.

According to the
New York Times
, cancer was an “incurable” disease. If politicians in Washington believed Cleveland’s life was in jeopardy, then his plans to revive the abominable economy would be as well. More banks would collapse; more farms would be foreclosed on; and millions more Americans would lose their jobs.

“I have a brief statement to make,” Lamont began, doing his best to affect a confident and casual air. “There has been quite a stir over a trivial occurrence of rheumatism. I think the reactions to the president’s minor aches and pains have been rather foolish, but I understand how unfounded rumors tend to take on a life of their own.”

As reporters scribbled Lamont’s words into their notebooks, the secretary of war continued. “It was nothing but dentistry that occasioned President Cleveland’s journey on his friend Elias Benedict’s yacht. The president had been too busy attending to affairs of state in Washington to see a dentist, and he used the occasion of his boat trip from New York to Buzzards Bay to have some dental work performed in a comfortable environment. President Cleveland understands the public’s curiosity about his health, and he is grateful for their concerns about his well-being.”

It was a hot and stuffy July evening, and sweat poured from the brows of the journalists packed into the barn. Lamont, on the other hand, looked as cool as a cucumber. There was no hesitation in his words or doubt in his tone. “President Cleveland’s dentist performed admirably, as did the patient, who has spent a relaxing day playing checkers with the First Lady.”

Having swatted away the “unfounded rumors,” Lamont turned to the silverites who Cleveland blamed for the country’s economic woes. “The only dishonorable behavior in the past week,” he said coolly, with the slightest of smiles, “has come from quarters opposed to the president’s attempts to revive the American economy. The opposition
knows that the public stands firmly behind President Cleveland’s monetary policies, and their attempt to portray the president as ill or injured is a sign of their desperation.”

For the next half hour, Lamont fielded questions asking for details about the dental procedures performed and the identity of the dentist employed, but time and again, Lamont dismissed the questions as “trivial” and “unworthy of a response.”

There was, in fact, only one question Lamont answered directly.

“Is it true,” asked a correspondent from the
New York Tribune
, “that Vice President Stevenson left the World’s Fair in Chicago yesterday and is travelling to Buzzards Bay?”

“No,” Lamont answered emphatically. “Although, the Vice President did apparently make the mistake of believing some of the more sensational reports of the president’s health in your newspapers. It’s true he
did
leave Chicago yesterday, and
was
heading here out of concern for the president’s health, but President Cleveland telegraphed him en route, reassured him of his general fitness, and requested Mr. Stevenson embark on a tour of the West Coast. There are important party leaders out there, and the administration desires that they know they have our respect and attention. For the next month, Vice President Stevenson will be visiting San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and cities in between.”

When Lamont returned to the main residence at Gray Gables he telegraphed the secretary of state to reassure him of the information he had just shared with the press. “To Walter Q. Gresham, Secretary of State,” Lamont wrote: “The president is laid up with rheumatism in his knee and foot, but will be out in a day or two. No occasion for any uneasiness. —D.S. Lamont.”

As his last official act of the evening, Lamont instructed an assistant to send a copy of the telegram to the reporters staying at Walker’s Hotel. He was unsure how much of his story in the barn they believed, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to show them the same information was being sent to President Cleveland’s own secretary of state. Even if reporters believed Cleveland would allow Dan Lamont to mislead a group of reporters, surely they wouldn’t believe Cleveland would allow Lamont to lie to his own secretary of state.

New York City

July 8, 1893

As the morning sun streaked through his window in the Schermerhorn Building, E. J. Edwards leaned back in his desk chair, puffed on his pipe, and skimmed the
New York Tribune.

M
R
. C
LEVELAND
I
S
B
ETTER

L
IKELY TO
R
ECOVER IN A
F
EW
D
AYS

The
New York Times
agreed:

“The assertion that President Cleveland is afflicted with any malady is all nonsense.”

Most ardent in its defense of the president’s good health was the
New York World
’s editorial page.

The persistent attempts to misrepresent and exaggerate President Cleveland’s ailment are something more than scandalous at this time. If these reports were believed by the public, they might very easily, and probably would, precipitate a financial panic.

In a lecturing tone, the
World
went on to call it “a pity if a president cannot have a ‘touch of rhoumatix’ and a toothache without giving rise to a swarm of rumors and false reports—some of them more malignant than his disease.”

Edwards closed the paper and took a sip of his coffee. Like the rest of the country, he had been perplexed by the president’s disappearance. After reading the United Press’s interview with Dr. Bryant the morning before, he began to wonder whether there was some truth to the rumors about Cleveland’s ill health. However, the press corps covering the president seemed to believe what Lamont had told them. Now, in light of the morning papers’ consensus about the president’s medical condition, Edwards suspected that little more would be heard regarding the rumors.

Greenwich, Connecticut

August 27, 1893

It had been nearly two months since E. J. Edwards had given much thought to President Cleveland’s mysterious disappearance. In that time, he had taken a summer vacation and then returned to Greenwich, Connecticut, where he kept a home.

As Edwards rode down the sweltering streets he heard a voice calling, “Edwards! Edwards!” The reporter instructed his driver to stop the carriage and then he poked his head out the window. Outside, he saw his friend Leander Jones running toward him.

Jones was a local doctor, and although Edwards wasn’t surprised that his friend would want to say hello and catch up, he was taken aback when, upon arriving at Edwards’s carriage, Jones, half out of breath, asked “Can you have your driver pull to the side? I have incredible news to share!”

New York City

August 28, 1893

8:45
A.M.

In the late nineteenth century, the elegant brownstones of Harlem were among the most prestigious addresses on the continent. Inside their tony walls lived the leading men of New York City: doctors and lawyers, bank owners and industrialists, and a dentist named Ferdinand Hasbrouck, who happened to be among the nation’s leading experts in anesthesia.

E. J. Edwards rang the doorbell of Ferdinand Hasbrouck’s town house so early that the dentist was still in his nightshirt when he opened the door.

“I apologize if you were sleeping, Dr. Hasbrouck,” the journalist said, extending his hand. “The name’s E. J. Edwards.”

The two shook hands as Edwards continued: “I write for the
Philadelphia Press,
and it’s only because I’m on a deadline that I’m here so
early. Would you mind taking a few moments to confirm a couple facts for an article I’m working on?”

Edwards was somewhat surprised when Hasbrouck invited him in, excused himself to change out of his nightclothes, and returned with a polite and pleasant demeanor. The reporter wasn’t sure why Hasbrouck had received him, but he tried his best to hide how thrilled he was to be sitting in the parlor of a man who might have the answer to the biggest mystery in the history of the presidency: What had Grover Cleveland really been doing for four days on the
Oneida
?

“I happened to be returning home in Greenwich yesterday,” said Edwards, “when a friend shared some details about your assistance with the president’s surgery on the
Oneida
last month.”

Edwards was doing his best to make his information seem unimportant—as if he were just nailing down some details for a story that everyone already knew about. The truth, of course, was exactly the opposite: Dr. Hasbrouck might be able to provide first-person confirmation for the biggest scoop by any reporter of E. J. Edwards’s generation.

As Edwards told Hasbrouck what he’d heard the day before, the dentist’s face grew ashen. His eyes widened with Edwards’s every word, and after just a few minutes, he flung himself back in his chair and sank down into it.

Finally, after Edwards described what happened on the
Oneida
in exacting detail, Hasbrouck exclaimed, “Some of the physicians who were aboard the yacht must have told you that story! You could not have obtained it any other way!”

In fact, the first person from the ship to speak with E. J. Edwards was Ferdinand Hasbrouck. His time on the
Oneida
had caused him to miss an appointment to provide anesthesia for a July 3 surgery in Greenwich with a doctor named Carlos MacDonald. In an attempt to explain his absence and protect his reputation against charges of unreliability, Hasbrouck revealed to MacDonald exactly where he had been on the first three days of July and exactly what he had been doing. MacDonald then told enough friends and colleagues that rumors about Cleveland’s health swirled around New York social circles well before the president ever reached Buzzards Bay.

Among those MacDonald told was a Connecticut doctor named Leander Jones.

New York City

August 28, 1893

6:45
P.M.

“I’m calling with the biggest scoop you’ve ever heard in your life!”

E. J. Edwards spoke quickly into the phone to a stenographer for the
Philadelphia Press
. “It’s too big for me telegraph it to you, so I’m going to dictate everything I’ve written over the phone. Are you ready?”

The real question, Edwards believed, was whether the country was ready.

“Make seven headlines. The top one should say:

T
HE
P
RESIDENT A
V
ERY
S
ICK
M
AN

Then, below it:

A
N
O
PERATION
P
ERFORMED ON
H
IM ON
M
R
. B
ENEDICT’S
Y
ACHT

P
ART OF THE
J
AW
R
EMOVED

A D
ISEASE
W
HOSE
S
YMPTOMS
G
AVE
I
NDICATIONS THAT
I
T
M
IGHT
B
E
S
ARCOMA

Follow that with:

M
R
. C
LEVELAND’S
P
RESENT
C
ONDITION
S
UCH AS TO
G
IVE
E
NCOURAGEMENT

T
HE
C
ASE
N
OT
U
NLIKE
G
RANT’S

Finally:

F
OUR
D
AYS IN
B
ED
A
FTER THE
U
SE OF
G
AS AND
K
NIFE—
S
EVERAL OF
N
EW
Y
ORK’S
E
XPERT
P
HYSICIANS
C
ONCERNED”

Edwards’s voice was full of excitement. For decades, he had tracked down every lead, cultivated countless sources, and had taken care to write one of the most reliably accurate and eloquent columns in the country. Now he was ready to inform the nation that their president had recently been diagnosed with cancer.

Cleveland, Edwards would report, had assembled a dream team of doctors on the
Oneida
to surgically remove his malignant tumor in an environment that would be free of leaks to the press. He had enlisted his friends—in particular his secretary of war—to cover it up with lies, all in the service of a president twice elected by the American people on the basis of his reputation for unwavering honesty.