Every Day Is Special: August 20 - Happy Birthday, Benjamin Harrison

August 20 - Happy Birthday, Benjamin Harrison

Posted on August 20, 2017

His presidency created the only grandparent/grandchild pair of presidents in U.S. history.

William Henry Harrison, left. Benjamin Harrison, right.

Benjamin Harrison, born on this date in 1833, was the grandson of President William Henry Harrison, who died of pneumonia just 31 days into his term.

Benjamin Harrison served his whole term, however. He beat the incumbent president, Grover Cleveland, and then, after four years, Grover Cleveland returned the favor and beat the incumbent-president Harrison!

This is only case of a president serving non-consecutive terms.

Here are some important aspects of Harrison's presidency:

Six, count'em, six states joined the union during his four-year term.

Not only did the country grow, but the government did, too. Harrison created a lot of protective tariffs, which gave the government a large income; he was the first to have a budget that exceeded $1 billion (when there wasn't a war).

Harrison spent a lot of money on improving harbors and updating the navy.

He signed an antitrust act that would stand up to big companies that were trying to create monopolies and unfair prices.

He tried to get laws ensuring voting rights and other human rights for African Americans. But...he failed in this important endeavor.

Harrison's home

Campaigns were different then.

Apparently, Harrison's first campaign for presidency was a traditional "front-porch" campaign. He didn't travel around the nation trying to convince people to vote for him. Instead, he let people come to his Indiana home, and he spoke to them from the front porch of his house.

At one point, 40,000 drummers from surrounding states visited him!

W-o-w!

During Harrison's second campaign for presidency, he was the sitting president. He didn't actively campaign at all! Harrison probably thought he had too much gravitas (dignity and seriousness of manner), as the president, to travel around asking people to vote for him.

As I mentioned above, however, Grover Cleveland was a former president. He might have thought he, too, had too much gravitas to be stomping a campaign trail. So he didn't actively campaign, either.

Both candidates had staff members campaign for them...