On This Date in History: Grover Cleveland was the only president to serve two non-consecutively terms as President of the United States. So, it is quite common for him to be listed as the 22nd and 24th President. In his first campaign, there was much mud-slinging between he and Republican James G. Blaine. The accusations against Blaine were pretty pedestrian. They claimed that he took bribes. Cleveland was accused of fathering a child with a woman to whom he was not married! In a world in which we are used to politicians making denials to claims against them, Cleveland took a novel approach. Guilty as charged. He acknowledged the legitimacy to the question and said that the child was indeed his. The American people seemed to shrug their shoulders and Cleveland was promptly elected. Goes to show, all you need to do is tell the truth! It’s amazing how difficult it is for some politicians to try such a simple and winning formula. Interestingly, the mother named the baby boy, Oscar Folsom Cleveland.
Now, Cleveland was an attorney by trade and he had a partner in practice by the name of Oscar Folsom, which raises the question as to why the mother used both the law partner’s names. Anyway, Folsom died in 1873 following an unfortunate carriage accident and left his old friend Grover to manage the estate. And manage he did! No, he didn’t marry his good friend’s wife…he married his daughter. Frances Clara Folsom was but 9 years old when her father died but Cleveland made sure that she and her mother’s finances were in order. After Frances Clara graduated from Wells College, he proposed marriage. Frances was not one to make a rush decision so she took a trip to Europe to clear her mind. When she returned, no doubt some thought she had lost her mind because the on June 2, 1886, President Grover Cleveland became the first president to be married in the White House to Frances, who was 27 years his junior. I wonder if when she was growing up she called him “Uncle Grover.”
They had several children, one of which was Ruth. The official story by the maker of the “Baby Ruth” candy bar was that it was named after the President’s daughter. Somehow, a judge sided with the company in a lawsuit it brought against the makers of the “Babe Ruth Home Run Bar” saying the competitor’s name too closely resembled “Baby Ruth.” Trouble is, Ruth Cleveland died in 1904, the candy company wasn’t in existance until 1916 and the “Baby Ruth” bar wasn’t born until 1921…or about the time that a certain George Herman Ruth was beginning to make a name for himself. But, the makers stuck to the story and, to this day as far as I know, the estate of Babe Ruth has not gotten a dime from the makers of the bar.
So, let’s jump ahead almost to the Cleveland’s 10th wedding annivesary. President Cleveland was in his second term as President and was the defacto head of a Democrat Party. Now, at this time there were no real laws to limit or control immigration. Yet, anti-immigrant sentiment had run high in the nation throughout the 19th century. In Antebellum America there was even a political party called the American Party that had some cloudt and became known as the “Know Nothings” with a platform that took an exceptional view of Americans born in the country and opposed any “non-native” Americans. Well, by the late 19th Century, the Democrat Party had taken the lead in anti-immigrant sentiments. Hence, as head of that party, on this date in 1896 Cleveland ordered his cabinet secretaries to determine exactly how many foreigners worked in the federal government. Much like illegal immigrants today, late 19th Century immigrants from Europe were blamed for rising crime rates. Cleveland held these “aliens” responsible for bringing with them ideas like socialism and communism. Once he found out the identities of the culprits, he had them investigated for potential subversive behaviour. Cleveland maintained that it was his duty and the right of the government to “prevent the influx of elements hostile to its internal peace and security…even where there is not treaty stipulation on the subject.” I’m just not sure how far back Cleveland took this. I mean, ultimately, everyone except for the Native Americans were immigrants at one point or another. If the investigators took it to the limit, then they’d have to investigate everyone in the government including the other investigators and the President himself!!
Today, we often hear of protestors who claim that governmental is unconstitutional or over-reaching. Many times, those bringing the charges are simply not well versed in Constitutional Law but, some times, the charges may hold merit. Either way, it would be wrong to assume it had never happened in American history. And it would be wrong to assume that the country would necessarily fall to pieces if the supposed un-Constitutional behavior of the government came about. Eventually, we seem to get things right. The pendulum of power has always swayed too and fro and as long as there are counterbalances amongst the people, the branches of government and the judicial system then things tend to work out in the end. The key to this democracy, in my view, is to maintain the balance of power between states, Congress, the executive and judiciary and to make certain that each part of government is by and for the people, not by and for those who would make themselves king or the would-be king makers.
Weather Bottom Line: Snow White and I had planned to take our niece, McKenna, to visit the animals at Henry’s Ark today. My sister-in-law informed us “it’s supposed to rain” on Tuesday. I told her nonsense. But, it’s an example of how people perceive forecasts. I told you yesterday that I had seen forecasts of 50% chance of rain for Tuesday and 50% on Wednesday and then it changed to 40% on Tuesday and 60% on Wednesday. Either way, when someone sees 40% then most people assume its going to rain. The truth is, it has been my experience that the majority of people on TV don’t even know what the rain chance means. They will usually say that a 40% chance of rain means that there will be “a 40% coverage of rain.” That would be wrong. Officially what it means is that at the forecast site, in this case the airport, given the forecast conditions that there would be measurable rain in that rain gauge 40 out of 100 days of similar weather conditions. It has nothing to do with coverage nor with rain amounts. In order for it be to an issue of coverage, uou would have to have a rain gauge about every 100 feet in the area because one must be able to verify an hypothesis. Now, the last station I worked for was quite reasonable because no one lives at the airport. So, we modified the meaning to say that at any given point in our viewing area we were forecasting that there would be rain 40 out of 100 days.
When I forecast, I always took the public perception into account. I personally did not think it would rain on Tuesday but had noted that a couple of models wanted to throw out a few sprinkles. I figured that the best chance for rain would be after midnight and on Wednesday. So, I would have put a 20% or 30% chance of rain on Tuesday because when people see that, they think that it won’t rain and I didn’t much think that it would but would have allowed for perhaps an outside possibility. By elevating the rain chances to say 70% for late Tuesday night and Wednesday, that would indicate to people when the best chance for rain was and also play to the perception that 70% means to most people that it will indeed rain.
All of this is holding true. Our air is just so doggone dry that I don’t see how the storms from the west will be able to hold together and by the time they get here, it will be after dark. On Wednesday, the storms will get going again but the best chance for them to really get rambunctious would be to our east when they are moving through the heating of the day. My guess is that we get rain in the first part of Wednesday and those storms become stronger as they head toward Lexington. However, should the initiation take place just to our west on say an outflow boundary left over from the Tuesday storms, then there would be the potential for some strong storms on Wednesday. So, I would say that its possible but not probable for strong storms in our region but that at least some shower or even thundershower activity will be in the region. After that, it gets hot heading into next weekend when it would appear that there may be another opportunity for strong storms.