Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Washington DC: The Secret Illnesses of Presidents with Sharon McMahon

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

In today’s solo episode, Sharon dives into a topic the American public has long been interested in: the illnesses of past presidents. Sharon gives details about the secretive ways three of our former presidents–Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt–kept the people in the dark about their surgeries and sicknesses. She talks about how presidential health was often tied to the nation’s health and success, and how that ultimately shifted during the Eisenhower Administration as transparency and medical technology evolved. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. So excited to have you with me today. And today I want to talk about Washington, D.C. and specifically some topics related to a few presidents that I know interest you. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Okay. I know this interests you because you have told me I'm not even guessing. I know it's true. Many people are fascinated by the secret illnesses of presidents. So today I want to share just a couple of secret illnesses with you because they're fascinating. We're so used to getting information at warp speed. What are they doing now?

Where are they now? Are they traveling to the hospital in an ambulance or a black car? You know what I mean? Like right now we get information so quickly. And that was absolutely not the case in America's past. You probably know that we've had 46 presidents, but remember that we've only had 45 men serve as 46 presidents. And that is because Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and the 24th president. He served his first term from 1885 to 1889 and his second term from 1893 to 1897. So why did he leave office in the middle?

He got defeated. He got defeated by Benjamin Harrison, who was the grandson of William Henry Harrison, who I've done an episode on before called President of the Month. So feel free to listen to the episode about William Henry. Benjamin Harrison was his grandson. So when Cleveland took office again, it was during a very tumultuous time in U.S. history. The country was getting ready to enter an economic depression. And back then, they did not have a lot of the social safety net supports that we have today that help people in the event of a very serious scenario.

They didn't have Social Security. They didn't have WIC or Medicare that you could get if you really were on financial hard times. So depression was something that was very much to be avoided. Shortly after Cleveland took office for the second time, he was a healthy middle-aged man with a real bushy mustache. He's kind of known for that mustache. He noticed a little bump on the roof of his mouth. And within a couple of months, that bump had continued to grow kind of at an alarmingly fast pace. And Cleveland decided to see a doctor. And his doctor took one look at it and said immediately, it is a bad looking tenant. And I would have it evicted immediately. It was cancer. And this presented a very serious problem for Grover Cleveland. Again, it's the 1890s and he worried that word

of his diagnosis would send Wall Street and basically the entire country into panic mode, which of course seems a little silly today. Like why would we panic if somebody has a physical ailment that has happened to people all the time? But you have to understand that it was not normal to share a president's physical maladies with the citizens. In fact, great lengths were taken to conceal them in many cases. Today we have this attitude that like cancer is something that happens to you and it's terrible and people feel a lot of compassion and empathy for people who go through those tough diagnoses. That was not as much the attitude in the past. It was like,

oh no, like you hid it from people. They, you know, had special hospitals just for cancer patients, but they didn't want to use the word cancer. So a sick president and an economic depression would have been a recipe for disaster. And Cleveland knew it. And so he did what he believed was the only reasonable thing. He decided to have secret surgery on a yacht, right? I mean, that's the only reasonable option, secret surgery on a yacht. So he announced he's going to just like take a little fishing trip on his friend's yacht called the Oneida. And he was just going to go near his summer home in Cape Cod, just a little fishing trip. So first of all, do presidents today

take fishing trips? Not so much, not so much. But other presidents in the past have had yachts, and that was not necessarily a weird thing. FDR is very famous for his yacht. And that wasn't as unusual as it would be today. So once he got on board the Oneida, it took a team of six surgeons about 90 minutes to remove the cancer inside of Grover Cleveland's mouth. And Cleveland was very concerned that the public was going to know that something was wrong, especially if his very voluminous mustache had disappeared. And so he did not want to have to shave his mustache off. So instead of going in through his lip, they decided to go in through his mouth. Again, this is on a yacht on the water.

Okay. This is not on a dock. This is in a yacht in the Atlantic Ocean. And yachts move, right? That's part of the, that's what they do. Even if they're at anchor, there's wave action. So this yacht is not perfectly still. So that would present an additional problem for doctors trying to do very delicate surgery inside somebody's mouth. somebody's mouth. So during the surgery, they removed the tumor along with five of his teeth and a large portion of his upper jawbone. And they tried to make it so that he wouldn't look

disfigured, but that didn't end up being the case. He needed a second surgery later. And then during that second surgery, he was fitted with a rubber dental prosthesis that helped correct his speech and restored his appearance. Now he was able to get away with it because he didn't have to give any public speeches that he didn't want to give. And he had this very bushy mustache that was able to hide a lot of what had taken place inside of his mouth, even though he was missing a chunk of his jawbone and missing a bunch of his teeth. This is oral surgery on a boat in the 1890s, a boat on the ocean. So a couple months after this fishing trip, quote unquote

fishing trip, a reporter named E.J. Edwards published a story about the surgery, and he said that he confirmed the story with one of Grover Cleveland's doctors. Which doctor? We don't know. That part is lost to history because no one wanted to come forward and own up to being the person who breached the president's confidence, clearly. But President Cleveland completely up and down the wall denied Edwards' story and had the doctors discredit the reporter by denying what happened on the yacht. Instead, they came up with a cover story of like, oh, you know, he had a couple bad teeth. We just thought we'd take care of it while we were out there, while he was fishing. A couple bad teeth.

That just, that was all that it was. So the cover story was pretty believable. But 24 years later in 1917, Cleveland and all of these surgeons and all of his staff members, they had all died. One doctor wrote an article detailing the real operation. Cleveland, by the way, died in 1908 of a heart attack. And this one doctor's name is William Keene corroborated all of the previous information of like, it was cancer. We had to remove five teeth. We had to remove a portion of his jawbone. And so Grover Cleveland's lie to the press and the other doctor's lies to the press were uncovered in 1917.

Isn't that crazy that a president just thought to himself, hey, I'm going to go on a fishing trip. I'm going to get myself, I'm going to get it all fixed on the boat. That also shows the amount of concern he had for what his illness would do to the country, that it would tank the stock market and things were already bad economically. I've spoken many times about how so much of the economy is based on public perception and he did not want that public perception to be tainted in any way. And he did not want that public perception to be tainted in any way. So let's move on to our next president who hid a secret illness, which is Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson was president for two terms.

He served from 1913 to 1921. And he was the first Democrat to serve two consecutive terms in the White House since Andrew Jackson for almost 100 years. And of course, Andrew Jackson suffered his own illnesses in office. I've spoken about him in a previous podcast as well. But Woodrow Wilson was a doer. He was probably an Enneagram three. He liked to get stuff done. And so much so that people in his immediate orbit were like, this man is going to work himself to death. He just stays up all hours of the night. He just never stops. And so some of the things that he did while he was in office were developed a whole big series of progressive era reforms, established the Federal Reserve, signed a major antitrust law, initiated what we now know as modern income tax. I mean,

the list goes on. I won't even give you the whole list of things that Wilson did while he was in office. Also remember what else was happening during this time period that Wilson was in office, World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic. I mean, very, very tumultuous times in the world. And so in November of 1918, he traveled to attend the Paris Peace Conference, which was where he was going to sign the Treaty of Versailles and the covenant to create the League of Nations. And he asked them, dare we reject it and break the heart of the world? And he just thought it was incredibly important that he show up. So he decided to go overseas despite the doctor's warnings that the flu pandemic was raging, that his own health was a bit precarious, that he was going to work himself to death. So he finally gets back to the White House,

right? We're now into 1919. And a doctor had sort of noted that Wilson's mouth was drooping on one end, which is a very telltale sign of a minor stroke. And then within a couple of weeks, President Wilson had a serious stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side and with only partial vision in his right eye. And he was confined to bed for weeks and sequestered away from everybody except his personal physician and his wife, Edith. Edith, by the way, was his second wife. He married her while he was president, but not at the White House. They got married at her townhouse in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of

laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. A neurosurgeon who later examined Wilson's medical records, like after he died, looked through all the stuff. And this is

what he concluded. He said that his illnesses would have affected his personality. Again, this is a doctor reviewing medical records after he dies, that his illnesses would have affected his personality, making him prone to disorders of emotion, impaired impulse control, and defective judgment. So because it is likely that President Wilson had so much impairment from his multiple strokes, his wife, Edith, stepped in and sprung into action as her husband's health deteriorated. She protected his reputation. She remained calm. Edith Wilson essentially acted as president, making decisions when Woodrow Wilson couldn't, moving between his bedside and his administration to keep everything running smoothly. A number of historians have

noted that Edith Wilson was technically the first female president of the United States because she took over all of his duties in secret to the American public. The American public didn't know any of this so that the American public, again, who has just gone through enduring very, very difficult times, doesn't have the added weight of, and now the president has had a stroke. Eventually though, President Wilson's inner circle learned of his health. They learned of what had happened. And then the rest of Congress learned what had happened. And while the jungle drums were beginning to beat of like, what, what, what? Some members of Congress encouraged the vice president to step in and be like, I should be president now.

But you have to remember something, that the 25th Amendment, which details how a vice president might be able to take power from a sitting president if they are incapacitated, the 25th Amendment, which details how a vice president might be able to take power from a sitting president if they are incapacitated, the 25th Amendment wasn't ratified until 1967. And so it was not actually clear in 1919 how one would go about taking power from a president who has clearly had a stroke. So Marshall did not consider the office of the president vacated. So he didn't make any moves on it. Wilson, meanwhile, is like, I still want to run for a third term. But the Democratic Party was like, sir, perhaps not. And the Democratic Party nominated a different candidate, James Cox, and they nominated a different vice presidential

candidate named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Perhaps you've heard of him. Cox and Roosevelt didn't win. Their opponent won, and their opponent was Warren Harding. I've talked about Warren Harding a bunch of times. Warren Harding died in office too. Harding won. He obviously beat Cox and Warren Harding and Woodrow Wilson met for tea on Wilson's last day in office in March of 1921. And both Woodrow Wilson and his wife, Edith, continued to avidly follow politics. Woodrow Wilson later was like, I'm going to reopen a law firm. He worked there for one day before it closed. And his health deteriorated very rapidly in 1924. And he died at age 67. His last words were said to be, I am a broken piece of machinery. And when the machine is broken, I am ready. So that brings us to the third president I wanted to talk about today,

which is FDR. Of course, everybody knows now that FDR had paralytic illness that made it so he couldn't walk. But people in the 1930s and 40s, many people did not know. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States, he was the only president to have been elected to four terms in office. And if you didn't know, the ability to run for more than two terms wasn't added to the constitution until after FDR left office. After James Cox and FDR lost the presidential election to Warren Harding, FDR moved back to New York. He continues to work as a lawyer and he decided he was going to make a political comeback in 1922. But in 1921, he got sick. So he arrives to this island for a summer vacation. And the day after he arrived, lots of outdoor activities with his family. He started to feel sick and he deteriorated very quickly. Pain in his lower back, nausea, chills, and he went to bed early.

And the next morning they called a doctor, a local doctor, and the local doctor was like, listen, you've just got a bad summer cold. You know, you just got to rest and drink some fluids. But the next day he woke up and found himself paralyzed from the waist down. This is an adult man married with children hoping for a career in politics who one day came down with a bad summer cold and within two days found himself paralyzed from the waist down. He was 39 at the time and he actually came pretty close to death from this illness. He had a lot of life-threatening medical problems throughout the rest of that summer. UTIs, faced respiratory

failure. He had blood clots in his legs. He had malnutrition. He had painful skin ulcers. He did not recover quickly. It wasn't like I had a cold, then I was paralyzed and it was fine. No, he was very sick. And Eleanor had to provide round-the-clock nursing care for him. And frankly, it was very likely that Eleanor Roosevelt is who saved FDR's life. By mid-September, so we're talking about six weeks later, five weeks later, he decided to go back to New York. It took them a long time to get there by boat and by train. And they finally admitted him to the hospital. He'd been on the island all this time, y'all. They finally admitted

him to the hospital in New York City and he was in the hospital for a month. Eventually they settled on paralytic polio. That is what he believed he had. Today most doctors disagree. Today most doctors say that his symptoms are pretty classic Guillain-Barre syndrome and at the time Guillain-Barre was not viewed as a separate syndrome the way it is now. It was all sort of just rolled into one during the 1920s when he was sick. Most of his symptoms ended up resolving themselves, except the permanent paralysis. He was never able to stand or walk again without support. And his mother, who was very, very influential on his life. We could do a whole podcast on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's mother.

Throughout the years, FDR and Eleanor had marital trouble. FDR was a serial philanderer. And Eleanor said, do you want to just get a divorce? And his mother, FDR's mother said, absolutely not. Under no circumstances will you get a divorce. I will cutdr's mother said absolutely not under no circumstances will you get a divorce i will cut you off from the family fortune you'll be dead to me so his mother wanted him to retire from public life and from politics and he managed to convince her eleanor was on his side that he could still have a future in politics but But in order to do that, they needed to convince the public

that he was vital enough to do the job. And so he was very careful to never ever be seen in public in his wheelchair. He taught himself to walk short distances wearing iron braces on his hips and legs. And he had to walk in such a way, he did use a cane publicly, but he had to walk in such a way that it wasn't apparent that he was wearing these iron braces on his hips and legs underneath his clothing. People did know that he had some level of disability because he used a cane. So it wasn't like people believed he was 100% healthy, but he went to great lengths. He took part in lots of rehabilitation exercises so that his upper body would always seem very vital and strong and that he would not seem like he was weak and frail. In fact, he began to go to this place in Georgia, Warm Springs, Georgia,

to get hydrotherapy, which would give him some temporary form of relief from a lot of the pain that he experienced. So often we associate paralysis with things like being in a car accident that severs your spinal cord and so you're numb and you don't have feeling. That is not the case for many people with paralytic illnesses. They live with very significant pain and FDR was one of those people. He eventually, by the way, would help build a rehabilitation center for polio patients in Warm Springs, Georgia. He worked to project this vibe of vitality. There was one time where he went fishing and he fought a 237 pound shark

for two hours to try to reel that in. He wanted the public to know that he was still very vital. So before he ran for president again, he was elected to two terms as governor of New York. And when he moved into the governor's mansion in Albany in 1929, they decided to make it wheelchair friendly. They installed an elevator, they made ramps, and he ultimately went on to, of course, win the presidency. He became the first and currently only physically disabled person to be the president of the United States. And when he moved to the White House, he had ramps installed in the White House as well. When Roosevelt would speak publicly, and this is something you can go and watch on YouTube, he would stand at a lectern, a very solid lectern. He did not want to stand

in front of lecterns that just were some legs and a top. He wanted the solid ones that were more substantial. He would firmly grip either side of the lectern to support his weight. Now, imagine you doing that, where you would stand at a lectern and for maybe half an hour, you would have to support your entire body weight with your arms. That requires a tremendous amount of effort, and it requires a tremendous amount of effort to make it look like it's not taking any effort, right? To make it seem like, it's no big deal. I can totally stand here unassisted.

But when you watch videos of him speaking in public, he gestures with his head. He does not ever let go of the lectern to gesture with his hand. He gestures with his head so that he can continue to firmly grip either side of the lectern. So in 1938, FDR founded an organization called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which is today known as the March of Dimes. And that is one of the reasons FDR is on the dime. And the goal, of course, was to help rehabilitate victims of paralytic polio. But now the March of Dimes has expanded and does other things. It focuses a lot on prematurity, congenital disabilities, et cetera. But Roosevelt addressed Congress for the last time in March of 1945, because he died in office in April of 1945.

It was the first time that he had ever made a public reference to his disability in the 20 years since he had been injured. He said, I hope that you will pardon me for this unusual posture of sitting down, but I know you will realize that it makes it a lot easier for me to not have to carry about 10 pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs. And it was clear that his health was beginning to fade. And so on April 12th, 1945, he was actually at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia with his extramarital significant other. He was sitting for a portrait when he said to everybody that was there, I have a terrific headache. And he slumped forward in his chair unconscious. He was carried into his bedroom. They brought in a doctor,

brought in a cardiologist, and his cardiologist diagnosed him as having had a massive brain hemorrhage. And he died later that day at the age of 63. And so there have been a number of presidents with unusual illnesses that they kept secret from the public. These are not all of them by long stretch, but that really began to change in the 1950s when Eisenhower became president. Eisenhower had a number of health problems. He was in his 60s. He was an older president. He had Crohn's disease and had to have emergency surgery. He had a number of health problems. He was in his 60s. He was an older president. He had Crohn's disease and had to have emergency surgery. He had a heart attack that kept him in the hospital for a number of weeks. And so was Eisenhower incredibly forthright of like, here's all my test results,

you guys? No. But he also knew that the age of television had made it so that it was more difficult to hide things from the American public. And Eisenhower really was the first president to break with protocol and become a little bit more forthright about some of his health concerns. Didn't stop Kennedy from hiding his absences, right? Certainly didn't stop other presidents from hiding illnesses that they had. But it was at least an acknowledgement that like, yeah, presidents are human beings. So that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed hearing more about some of the presidents, the secret illnesses of presidents, and I'll see you again soon.

Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and

Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.