The Rest Is History - 601. Scandal in the White House

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Who was Grover Cleveland, and why is he one of the most controversial American Presidents of all time? Why was the run up to his first term, in 1884 at the height of the Gilded Age, so pivotal to American politics? How did he rocket to the heights of political power? What dark secrets began swirling about his disreputable past, and character? Did he really seduce a young widow by the name of Maria Crofts Halpin, impregnate her, and then lock her in a mental asylum? What became of their alleged child? And, how did this shocking scandal unfold?  Join Dominic and Tom as they investigate one of the most lurid stories in all American political history - a tale of lust, lies, deviance and kidnapping, but also immense political significance. What is the truth behind this mystery? ______ Try Adobe Express for free now at https://www.adobe.com/uk/express/spotlight/designwithexpress?sdid=HM85WZZV&mv=display&mv2=ctv or by searching in the app store. Learn more at https://uber.com/onourway Visit theweek.com/rest and enter code HISTORY to claim your six-week free trial, plus an extra 10% saving on all subscription packages ______ Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude  Video Producer: Jack Meek Social Producer: Harry Balden Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, add free listening, early access to series and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to the rest is history.com and join the club. That is the rest is history.com. This episode is presented by Adobe Express, the quick and easy create-anything app. What does that mean? Well, say you need to make a presentation or a video or a social media post or a flyer to some, certainly to me, that sounds intimidating. But Tom, with Adobe Express's intuitive features like templates, generative AI and real-time

collaboration, it has never been easier. Adobe Express. Try it for free. Search Adobe Express in the App Store. Terrible tale, a dark chapter in a public man's history. A pitiful story of Maria Helpin and Governor Cleveland. Some years ago, a beautiful, virtuous and intelligent young lady entered the employee of Flint and Kent, most excellent men and leading merchants in our city.

She was put at the head of their cloak department and served them for some two or three years to perfect satisfaction. Mr. Grover Cleveland made her acquaintance, won her confidence, and finally seduced her. She lost her position, was cast out of good society,

and driven to despair. Poor Maria Helpin, for that was her name, went away broken-hearted, disgraced and outcast, while her seducer continued to revel in the realm of lust and pretend before the great American public that he is a model of virtue, preeminently worthy of being honoured by their votes. Perhaps personal character originally ought not to be involved in political discussions, but it would be criminal to allow the virtuous to vote for so vile a man as this, under a false impression, that he is pure and honourable. it is painful to think of his offences and shameful infinitely shameful to have such a man commended to the suffrages of a Christian nation

it is enough to alarm all decent people and cause even the vulgar and profane to hesitate and demand a halt So that, Dominic, the dramatic front page of the Buffalo Evening Telegraph on the 21st of July 1884, breaking the news of perhaps the most lurid sex scandal in American political history. And that is setting the bar quite high, isn't it? It is, because they've had some tremendous sex scandals, haven't they? In our own lifetimes, Tom. There have been all kinds of goings on in the White House. I think back to the behavior of Bill Clinton, which I think now, when you look back on it, was pretty poor.

I don't think there's any defending it, really. And this is describing Mr. Grave Cleveland as a presidential candidate. Yes. Presidential candidates being accused of sexual impropriety. I mean, it has been heard of even in the 21st century. Even in the 21st century, there's a rich tradition of it. But this is in a different league. So on the face of it, this story is a side.

of lust and lies and kidnapping and rape that is worthy of a Victorian sensation novel. So it often reads those listeners who've read The Moonstone or the Woman in White in particular by Wilkie Collins, the kind of sensation fiction of the mid-19th century, there is a stolen baby, there is a grotesquely fat villain. It's Count Fosco, isn't it? It's Count Fosco in the Woman in White. There is a widow imprisoned in a lunatic asylum. to stop her telling the truth.

But also, this is a story of massive political significance because it breaks during one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in American history. So we're in the Gilded Age, Tom, in 1884, and that for people who are not massively familiar with American history, it's the era after the Civil War, it's factories, tycoons, railroads, sort of men with colossal beards, women with gigantic, ball gowns. I mean, Dominic, this is the kind of political era that Custer would have entered had he

not run into the Sioux at Little Bigmore. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. So 1884 is a really, really important year because for the first time since before the Civil War, the Republicans, Abraham Lincoln's party, are in real danger of losing the White House. So a generational shift politically, and the man who is poised to beat them is Governor Grover Cleveland of New York. Now, I'm guessing quite a lot of people listen to this will not really be massively familiar with his career. Are you familiar with his career, Tom? Well, I was because he is one of those pub quiz questions that was always a banker, because he was, until very recently, the only president to have served a term, lost an election, and then won again.

Yes. And you know, you could go into a couple of ways knowing there was a strong likelihood that question would come up and you could bank your point. And then Donald Trump completely ruined it by doing exactly the same. Well, Donald Trump has had a pretty incredible rise to political prominence. But Grover Cleveland's in some ways is even more extraordinary. So at the age of 44, right, Cleveland was basically a nobody. He was a lawyer in Buffalo, a New York, quite a successful lawyer, but he'd only ever had one political job. which is the sheriff of Erie County.

And he'd had that job a decade earlier and then left it and gone back to kind of his legal practice. And then he has this four-year period where he becomes mayor of Buffalo and then governor of New York. And then in 1884, he's nominated by the Democrats as their candidate to become the 22nd president of the United States.

So basically he comes from nowhere in the space of four years. Yeah, it's a meteor, right? And then he's president, he loses, and then he becomes president together. And for about half a century after he left office, he had quite a high reputation. So in the 1930s, there was a very distinguished American journalist called H.L. Mencken, who wrote, we have had more brilliant presidents than Cleveland and one or two who are considerably more profound, but we've never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was more admirable.

And I mean, that's quite a telling testimony, isn't it? Because Mencken was, I mean, he was a satirist as well as a journalist. he would mock what he saw as ridiculous. He reported on the Scopes trial, basically putting Darwinism on trial. And so the fact that he didn't see Cleveland as an immoral man or a ridiculous man, I mean, that's striking. It is very striking. But Tom, of course, if the story you opened with is true, absolutely. And then Mencken was wrong. And if Mencken was wrong and the story is true, then Grover Cleveland was not merely a liar, a bully. He was a sexual abuse. He was a sexual possibly a rapist, a man who locked his victim in a mental hospital to keep her quiet.

So like a figure from Victorian melodrama. Completely. Now, I said if it's true, this is the question. Is this story true? Is Grover Cleveland one of the great villains in American political history? Or is he one of the great victims, a victim of one of its cruelest smears? So today's episode, it's both a brilliant window into the politics of the Gilded Age, but it's a very thrilling detective story in which you will sift the evidence.

So again, like Wilkie Collins. Like Wilkie Collins, exactly. So maybe we should kick off at Grover Cleveland himself, because I'm guessing that a lot of listeners won't be overly familiar with the details of his career. Grover's a great name. Got to say that. Putting that on the record. Well, there's a Muppet called Grover, isn't it?

Who's named after Grover Cleveland, I believe. So that's exciting. Yeah, that is exciting. All right. So Grover Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837. He's the fifth of nine children. His father is a Presbyterian minister. So he has a very strict Presbyterian upbringing.

We're going to be sifting Grover Cleveland's kind of moral, the record of his personal morality. He had a very strict Presbyterian upbringing. The kids and the Cleveland household weren't allowed to play on Sundays. They had to go to two church services to Sunday school and to a prayer meeting on Sundays, which seems too much to me. And all the sense that we have of him as a boy is he's actually quite dull, serious, self-disciplined. He's quite gruff and kind of laconic when he grows up. So he's not

really a very flamboyant character. Could this be the mask of an unspeakable hypocrite? Exactly. Well, this is the question. So when he's 16, his father dies and a local Presbyterian deacon said to Grover, if you'd like to follow him into the church, I will pay for your education. And Grover Cleveland said, no, it's not for me, thank you. I'm going to seek my fortune at West. So off he goes. And his plan, ironically, is to go to Cleveland, but halfway between where he is, New Jersey or whatever, and he wants to go to Cleveland, Ohio. Halfway is Buffalo, New York. And he decides to stop there because his uncle Lewis is there, and he's made lots of money in insurance and has set up as a farmer as well. Now, Buffalo is a very good place for him to be stopping. It is a boomtown. It's a classic 19th century boomtown. Buffalo is the main inland, port between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. So at this point, sort of mid-century, it's the world's largest grain port and the second largest railway hub in the whole of the United States.

Is it after Chicago? I think it is after Chicago. So the West is being opened up, basically. Exactly. So its population has grown tenfold in 30 years from 8 to 80,000. It's doubling again in the next 30 years or so. It's a very, it's a boom town, but it's a rough town. So there's a street called Canal Street running along the Erie Canal, said to be the wickedest street in America, or people call it the infected district.

So maybe this is why Grover Cleveland didn't stop there. Maybe, tell me, because it's lined with saloons and brothels, and it's said to be more dangerous than anywhere in the World West, so the police have to patrol in threes. Now, if you're of Tom's more cynical disposition, you'd say, what a surprise that it's here that Grover Cleveland decides to see. is wandering. Yes, escaping his mission to become a minister in the church, to settle down in a town famous for its brothels. I think actually it's nothing to do with the brothels. It's basically because he kind of, it's a boom town and his uncle Lewis says, I'll get you an internship with the local law firm. And he really takes to it. He's admitted to the New York State Bar in 1859 when he's 22. Now, just two years later, the American Civil War is going to break out. Now, Grover

is not, despite the fact that he's a Presbyterian and Presbyterians are overrepresented in the Republican Party, he's not a Republican. He sees the abolitionists. He thinks they're extremists. He's not a pro-slavery person, but he thinks the Democrats are more moderate. So he becomes a Democrat. And he actually campaigns for James Buchanan, one of the worst presidents in American history in 1856. And in 1860, he doesn't vote for Abraham Lincoln. He votes for the Democratic candidate, Stephen Douglas. So the war breaks out, and he doesn't fancy it. Under the conscription act, you could pay somebody else to take your place for you if you were conscripted. So when he is conscripted in 1863, he pays an illiterate Polish immigrant called George Biniski, $150 to serve in his place.

And later on, when this came out, because obviously it's not ideal for Cleveland's political career that he didn't serve, he is completely unrepentant. He says, look, I was allowed to do it, I paid this bloke, I actually paid him over the odds, which is true. Cleveland paid him quite handsomely. And this bloke Benisky, later on, Republicans said, oh, this guy Benisky, he served in Grave of Cleveland's place, and he went through unspeakable horrors. I mean, he did go through one unspeakable horror, but this was nothing really to do with the war.

Beniske was unloading a supply wagon when, unfortunately, he suffered a testicular torsion. What is that? So some form of spermatic cord becomes wrapped around your testicle and sort of twists it. And unless you're operated on, instantly, pretty much instantly, unless the testicle is removed, you know, you could get gangrene or you could get all sorts of horrors. So, yeah. We had the guy who kills Booth, cutting off his

testicles. Boston Corbett. And now we've got another kind of civil war period testicular theme. I mean, what's going on in America at this time? Yeah, something in the water, clearly. Well, anyway, this guy had it removed, and then he was as right as rain. And Cleveland actually went and visited him in hospital, which I think reflects very well on him. Because it's not like they were great pals. Cleveland just paid him to take his place. But Cleveland went to see how he was doing. Now, in the meantime, Cleveland's legal career is absolutely thriving.

He opens a law firm. He makes lids of money. He gets a reputation for what one of his colleagues calls, his indomitable industry, his unpretentious courage, and unswerving honesty. Dominic, could I read you something from the Bodleon? Oh, my gosh. Wikipedia features.

We haven't had Wikipedia on the rest of history for ages. So this is what it says in the Bodleon. Yeah, go for it. Cleveland assumed a lifestyle of simplicity. taking residence in a plain boarding house. He devoted his growing income to the support of his mother and younger sisters. But again, what if it's all afront?

Well, but this all makes him sound incredibly dreary. Does, doesn't it? But he's not actually. He's a great laugh. So places like Buffalo Boomtowns are full of bachelors of this, of sort of in their 20s and 30s, because men greatly outnumber women.

And Cleveland is a proper man's man. So he will spend his evenings. When he's not working, he goes to a saloon or a beer, hall. He smokes cigars. He plays poker with the lads. He just has a brilliant time. He's barely straining against the buttons of his florid waistcoat. He looks, he looks exactly as he should. So he's an enormous man, six feet tall. He's got a gigantic walrus mustache. Now, Buffalo has become a popular sort of magnet for German immigrants. So there are loads of

German beer halls and places serving sausages. And this is basically Cleveland's diet. So Cleveland starts to become incredibly fat. His friends call him either Big Steve or Uncle Jumbo. So here he is. Uncle Jumbo or Big Steve. And everybody thinks he's brilliant. He's a great fun. He loves a sort of a tall tail, a massive cigar, all of this. The only thing that diminishes his sense of genial swagger, Tom, he's got, he's basically got, I hate to say this, he's got your voice. Oh, manly. People say he's got a voice that's perhaps slightly more sensitive than you would expect from such a big man. Does that seem fair to you?

There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. So on the one hand, he's very boring and lives a life of simplicity. And on the other hand, he's out necking sausages and hanging out with the lads. They seem hard to integrate. I think in Gilded Age America, that's a popular combination. So he's living his life of austerity and then he's going out on the town. I think he works hard and blaze hard.

That's what he does. He's got this great pal, who's his sort of Charles Brandon to his Henry the 8th, who is called Oscar Folsom. Oscar Folsom is much more of a rake than Cleveland is. He likes hunting and gambling. He likes carriage races. Oh, like Prince Philip. Yes, like Prince Philip.

Or Mark Anthony, I suppose. So people should remember this book, Oscar Folsom, because he will play a part in the detective story to come. So meanwhile, Grover's had this little down. in politics. The Buffalo Democratic Party is thriving because it appeals to immigrants in particular, so Irish, German immigrants and so on. The Republican Party always had a nativist element to it, so immigrants tend to be drawn to the Democrats. And in the 1870s, early 1870s, the Democrats get Grover to run as Erie County Sheriff, and he wins, and

he takes the oath of office surrounded by old his mates. They're drinking whiskey and smoking massive cigars. It's very kind of, you know, deadwood in an atmosphere. He'd be played by Ian McShane. So he does this for four years and then he goes back to his legal career, very successful. Can I just tell you something interesting from, that I again picked up from the Bodlian. Yeah, too. Which during his term of office as sheriff, he personally executes two murderers. One of them are matricide. And normally, you know, if you're a sheriff, you pay a deputy to do it for you. But he personally, I don't know, what do you do? Do you hang them? What do you do? Yeah, I think they were hanged. I think it was very troubling for him, actually. He wrestled with it. He didn't enjoy it, but he wanted to do it personally because he said, this is my responsibility. You know, I just have to suck this up.

Okay. So actually, what seemed to reflect badly on him actually reflects well on him. Yeah. He's not a murderer. Okay. I was wondering if perhaps this reflected a relish for inflicting cruelty on people or something. No, I happen to know, as we will come to you later, that one of Cleveland's biographers is a keen listen to this podcast, so he will be appalled by this. Okay, I'm just, you know, groping my way to try and get a handle on his character. Absolutely fine. So he does the sheriff thing for four years, then he goes back to his legal career. There's only one shadow, which is that his mate, Oscar, has a carriage accident.

Basically, he's racing this carriage or riding this carriage. He hits a wagon. He falls out of the carriage, and then he's run over by his own horse. horse and carriage. So he's killed and Oscar leaves a widow called Emma and a daughter called Francis. Now, you know, Emma is in her sort of 30s or something. Francis's, the daughter is just 11 years old. Now, Cleveland is now almost 40. He is made the executor of Oscar's will and Francis's legal guardian. So she is now technically, uh-oh, his legal ward. She doesn't live with him. It's just a sort of formality.

And actually, at the time, a lot of people say, well, probably what will happen is that Grover will end up marrying Emma or marry the widow. Because, you know, they're pals and stuff. It just seems the natural thing to do. So this is a slight soap opera dimension, I think, to Grover Cleveland's story. And we shall return to it to see whether he does marry Emma and what happens to Francis. So we get to 1881. Grover's now, what is he? When was he born?

1837, was it? So he's, yeah. So I'm doing this as live maths. How old is he, Dominic? He's in his early 40s. So the Democrats need somebody to run as mayor of Buffalo. The big issue of the day in Buffalo, as in everywhere else in America, is corruption. You know, the huge capitalist boom of the Gilded Age, the railroads and stuff,

that's generated lots of opportunities for patronage and for back scratching, and corruption is the big issue of the day. They want someone with clean hands, and they say to Cleveland, you're the person. He becomes the mayor. He runs the same. city very efficiently. He cleans up the government. He cuts a lot of kind of patronage projects, cuts a lot of spending. Of course, that goes down very well with taxpayers. And he starts to get a good reputation more widely. So a year later, the New York State Democrats ask him to run for governor

of New York. Now, the reason they've asked him as an outsider is that New York party, like so many of these political parties, is riven by feuding. So, Cleveland runs. The Republicans are divided themselves between lots of factions. So he gets lots of crossover Republican votes. He takes the oath of office January 1883, Governor in New York, and he says, you know, it's going to be all about competence and efficiency and clean government. And everybody says, oh, this is tremendous. There's only one downside with Cleveland as a political package, which is that he's now, he's been eating sausages all this time. So he's now absolutely enormous. He's now 20 stone. And one New York,

Porter said, his skin hangs on his cheeks, thick, unhealthy looking folds. The coat buttoned about his large chest and abdomen looks ready to burst with the confined fat. Plainly, he's a man who's not taking enough exercise. He remains within doors constantly. He eats and works, eats and works, works and eats. Dominic, as well as the Bodleon, I also came across a very exciting website which lists America's fattest presidents. Right. Cleveland is. second on the list after William Howard Taft, who everyone knows it's the fattest. Yeah, Taff got stuck in the bath, I think. He was so fat. Yes. It has a brilliant quote from him talking about exercise, and he says that bodily movement alone is among the dreary and unsatisfying things

of life. Wow. He wouldn't fit in in your cricket team. No, he wouldn't. Not my gym. Although he might enjoy the standing around aimlessly element of playing cricket. I think he'd enjoy the tea. Yeah, exactly. So, in a TV age, this would be an issue. Chris Christy found this out. He was the governor of New Jersey, a very large man. Yeah. Sopranes, look. Yeah. But in a pre-TV age, you can be as fat as you like. It doesn't matter. What matters is his image of incorruptible competence. So 1884 is a presidential election year. The Republican Party, which is the dominant party, they've won every election since 1860, but now they're in a real mess. Basically, the Republican who had won last time was a guy called James A. Garfield. He was assassinated

after just a few months by a disappointed office seeker called Charles Gito. So Garfield was assassinated. He was succeeded by his vice president, Chester Arthur. He's probably the least famous of all American presidents. If you Google him, you'll see massive whiskers, proper 19th century whiskers. Good. Arthur's administration had been blighted by a Republican feuding, different factions called the half-breeds and the stalwarts,

fighting over corruption and patronage. Now, an interesting Chester Arthur fact for you, by the way. I read, he owned 80 pairs of pants. And pants? Is that American English or proper English? I'm guessing Americans mean trousers. I think that's too many pairs of trousers. I think it's too many pairs of pants, frankly.

He sounds great. I'd vote for him. What more do you want? But that's not enough. It's not enough. And the Republicans have actually dumped him as their candidate, and they've nominated a former Secretary of State, a guy from Maine called James G. Blaine.

James G. Blaine. He's from Maine. Now, how familiar are you with James G. Blaine? May I ask? Love him. Because no one's heard of James G. Blaine now. But James G. Blaine at the time was massive. Like, James G. Blaine was a massive star. But not literally massive. Not in the Grave of Cleveland sense. No, not in the Cleveland or Taftsense.

But, well, he had a gigantic bit. He looks, if you Google him, He looks absolutely like an AI-generated, Gilded Age, American politician with a beard. However, at the time, he was a great speaker, he was very charming, he was a big star. His one great weakness was he had a reputation for corruption. But didn't everybody in this period? Yes, well, this is the thing.

He was accused of having taken bribes from railroad companies. I mean, that's even more standard, right? I mean, it just comes with the territory. Yeah, everybody did this. However, he couldn't shake this. So the Democrats think, well, we've got a really good chance now. of winning the White House. Now, we can't win with the Southerner

because memories of the Civil War are still too raw. So we need someone from a northern state and someone who's squeaky clean is not corrupt. It's not like James G. Blaine. So they nominate Cleveland. Even though he's pretty untested

and he's only recently become governor of New York, they nominate him on the 11th of July 1884. Scenes of tremendous excitement. And dominate, presumably, a complete lack of background checks. A complete lack of background checks, exactly. Now, just 11 days after they nominate him, there comes an absolute bombshell because all this time, while the Democrats have been preparing to nominate Cleveland, a bloke called George H. Ball, who's a Baptist minister in Buffalo, has been getting very agitated.

George H. Baud is a very keen Republican. He'd been a delegate to the very first Republican convention in 1856. He hates the thought of a Democrat winning the presidency for the first time since the Civil War. And he has been writing letters to newspaper editors saying, don't endorse Cleveland. I know things about Cleveland that would make your eyes water. So, for example, there is this letter to the Chicago Advance. Tom, would you like to read the letter since you joining your American voice? I feel moved to warn you against saying much to the credit of Grover Cleveland. He is a libertine. No Christian should condone his crimes so far as to commend his candidacy.

About seven years ago, he seduced the head of the cloak department of Flint and Kent's leading merchants here. He kidnapped the woman after the boy was born, sent her to the insane asylum, and took the child from her. She escaped, finally settled, and gave up the child for $500. This, I know, to be true. I mean, that's quite an accusation. It's a heck of an accusation. Now, the advance didn't print this, the show of advance, but through sort of intermediaries, they showed it to the Republican candidate, James G. Blaine.

Blaine gave it to a mate at the Boston Journal, but they didn't run the story. They were very close to Blaine. It looked too obvious to be coming from them. So they feel that if they run it, I mean, what are they worried about, that it sounds fake? Yeah, it sounds fake. Right. That's their instinct. Well, not that it sounds fake that it's definitely untrue, but that they are so much in

they're so close to Blaine and the Republicans that it looks like naked propaganda. Right, okay. They're basically better coming from another source. So the source that breaks the story in the 21st of July is the Buffalo Evening Telegraph that we began with.

That story, terrible tale, a dark chapter in a public man's history. And the story is as follows. The paper says, look, Grover Cleveland's not just a libertine. He's a really bad man.

He's a beastly drunk. he's a hypocrite and a lecher. He's always getting into brawls and saloons. He freely associates openly with lewd women. In other words, he is Harry Flashman, basically. He's even got the moustache. And there was more. There's this extraordinary story of lust and deceit. And this is the business about Maria Halpin. Now, I'll just summarize the story before we go to the break. Maria Halpin was a New Yorker. She'd been born around the same time as Cleveland, late 1830s. She had married a man from Worcester, England, an engraver. But he died of TB. She had two kids. So she moved to Buffalo. And as we've heard, she worked in the cloak department of Flint and Kent, this department

store. Now, by her own account, Grover Cleveland saw her at this department store, was very taken with her. He was the sheriff in those days. He sort of courted her. She made inquiries. She found out that he was a decent person. So they would occasionally meet. And it was all very decorous. But according to this first story in the Buffalo Evening Telegraph, eventually Cleveland seduced her. She found out she was pregnant. He promised to marry her, but then he basically ghosted her completely, broke off relations. After a lot of towing and throwing, she sent messages to him, and he finally said he would, quote, acknowledge his fault, and he would make financial provision for her. But he made a point of adding, apparently, according to this story,

I can't be sure I'm the father. You've been seeing other men. How can I be certain as mine? Can I just ask you, because again, there seems a massive contradiction here. Yeah. That on the one hand, Maria is making inquiries and finds out that Cleveland is of a decent reputation. And that's what persuades her to accept his opportunities.

Yeah. On the other hand, the claim is that he's notorious and he's always being arrested in bars and things. Yes. I mean, how are those two claims to be squared? Are there police records of him being arrested? I think this is a fair comment. This is a very fair comment, Tom.

And I will just say that the stuff with him, like, in ludicrous bar fights with kind of, you know, brothel madams or whatever, like smashing chairs over people's heads and stuff, I think it's, I don't think any sane person believes that these stories are true. Because everything we know of him in his legal group is he just worked. When he wasn't eating sausages and playing poker, he was just working all the time. Because presumably, as is claimed, everyone in Buffalo knows that he's his reprobate, it would be very easy to find... Of course. Would they have then elected him, mayor of Buffalo? That's the question. Yeah, so I'm just asking. Yeah, it's fair to ask these questions. Anyway, let's go back to Maria's story. Maria gave birth to a son on the 14th of September 1874. She's unmarried, of course. She's a widow, but at this point she's unmarried. She called the baby Oscar Folsom Cleveland.

So the best friend. The best friend and Cleveland's surname. Seems a bit strange. Then something stranger happens. Her doctor, who was called James E. King, persuaded her to give him the baby. And he took it to his sister-in-law who's called Minnie Kendall, who lived with her husband by the Buffalo Stockyards. He said to Minnie, here is this baby. I want you to call it Jack.

I don't want you to tell anybody about it. I will pay you to be its carer and its wet nurse if you tell anyone there could be tragic consequences. So this is very mysterious. Then a few weeks later, Dr. King returned to the house and he said to his sister and nor Minnie, we need to go on a trip downtown with the baby. They went on this trip and they arrived at Bass, Cleveland and Bissell,

Cleveland's law firm. And they went in and in there is Grover Cleveland and a woman in floods of tears. The baby was asleep. The woman snatches the baby and she says, oh my baby, open your eyes, let me see them. Oh, my precious baby, why don't you open your eyes? Now, this is clearly Maria Halpin, the baby's mother.

According to the story, Cleveland roughly intervenes, says, give the baby back. Then he winks at the doctor. He lights a cigar and then Minnie and the baby are shown back out again. Now, all this, by the way, comes from an interview with Minnie Kendall that was in the Chicago Tribune. Dominic, can I just ask? Is the Chicago Tribune, which party is it supporting? It's a Republican paper.

Right, okay. But if we want to check this out, there's a book by a guy called Charles Lackman, A Secret Life, The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland. You can tell what's sign he's on, which goes into this in great detail. So the months passed. Then in 1875, Dr. King comes back to C. Minnie, and he says, I need to take Jack back to his mother now. And this time, they go to Maria Halpin's boarding house.

Again, she's weeping. She's hysterical. They hand over the baby. And at this point, Maria Helpin absolutely loses it. She says to Dr. King, you're in league with Grover Cleveland. You've stolen my baby. You're evil men. Now, Minnie, who's been looking after the baby, is very shaken by all this.

Dr. King says to her, as they leave, never speak of this again, Minnie. He says, I think it would be best for you and your husband to get out of town. I'll find new jobs for you. And indeed, they do get out of town. They end up moving to New Hampshire. And they disappear from this story. So, Maria has now got her son back, but the story now takes another melodramatic twist. She's got this baby back, but all the time she's appealing to Grover Cleveland to marry her, and he refuses.

She starts drinking heavily because she's so stressed, and that gives Cleveland his opportunity. In early 1876, Cleveland sends a friend with an offer. He says, I will give you the money to set up your own dress shop at Niagara Falls, but in return, you have to give me the baby, Oscar, and I will put him in the orphan asylum, and I will pay $5 a week for his bored and lodging. And Maria is desperate, she is distra, and under pressure, she agrees. So she goes off to Niagara, and two and a half-year-old Oscar goes off to the orphanage. But pretty much as soon as Maria gets to Niagara, she changes her mind. She says, no, I can't be separated from Oscar. She comes back to Buffalo. She goes straight to the

orphanage. She scoops up the baby and off she goes. And now comes the most shocking twist of all. If this story is true, this is the point to which Cleveland loses patience and comes to a very ruthless decision. Because a few weeks later, his confederate, this nefarious Dr. King, arrives a Maria's house with two policemen. They find her playing with Oscar. They drag her out, they drag her down the stairs, puts her in a carriage. They drive for just under an hour and they arrive this vast, sinister, institutional building. Oh, right. So this is where the woman in white,

the kind of classic melodramatic twist of the woman who gets locked up in a lunatic asylum. And according to the story, against her will, restrained by the policeman, Maria Halpin is registered as patient number 150 of the Providence lunatic asylum. Now, this is basically what happens to the heroin,

isn't it? And the woman in white, Laura Fairly. But there was a difference. In real life, the people who run the Providence Lunatic Asylum are much more sort of decent, kindly and sensible. So they're not rattling keys on chains and things like that? They're not. Because the very next day, according to Maria's story, she goes to see the resident doctor who's called William Ring, and he examines her.

And he says, oh, my dear, you're not mad at all. We have no right to keep you here. You can come and go as you please. Really? That's not the impression I get from Wilkie Collins at all. No, exactly. But so a few days later, she walks out. to the asylum as a free woman. She goes to see a lawyer and she says, I want to get my son

Oscar back. That's my priority. So the lawyer sets to work, but then a very strange thing, another very strange thing happens. Sometime later, Maria comes to see him again. He says, oh, the legal process is, you know, in train. It looks good. And she says, no, no, no, I've changed my mind. I don't want a scandal. I don't want to fight. And she hands him a letter. and it's a signed contract that she's just made with Grover Cleveland. She's given up all rights to her son forever, and in return, Cleveland has paid her $500. So she never did get Oscar back.

And guess who Oscar was given to? The doctor, the sinister doctor. He was given to the sinister doctor. You've clearly read the notes. Well done. No. He's the only character who it could possibly be. I mean, it's not going to be Blaine or whatever his name is, is it?

He's the only other person you've mentioned. That's a twist. That would be unexpected. No, he was given to James E. King, the sinister doctor, whose only child had died two years earlier. And Oscar was given a new name, James E. King, Jr. And his mother never, ever saw the child again. Well, I guess that if this is breaking,

then it's not excellent for Cleveland's campaign, is it? I mean, there are better things that could have happened. And I suppose the other question is, is this authentic or has it been fabricated by his political enemies? Are there elements of truth that have been kind of amplified? And I think the only thing to do is to have a break. And then when we come back, Dominic, perhaps you could reveal what you think happen. All right. This episode is brought to you by Uber. Now, do you know that feeling when someone shows up for you when you need it most?

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leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 X-E-90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History and Dominic. This is an episode that could be about shocking political scandal or it could be about a wholly invented melodrama or it could be a mingling of both. I'm intrigued to find out what you think is going on here. Well, let's go back to the narrative in 1884. So remember, we're in July 1884.

The Buffalo Evening Telegraph has just broken this story about Maria Halpin and Grover Cleveland. The presidential election is in tumult. The Democrats are in a complete panic. Cleveland's team are obviously horrified by this. And one of them comes to him and says, what shall we do? Cleveland says simply, perhaps admirably, if you're on team, Grover Cleveland, whatever you do, just tell the truth. But what is the truth?

They prepare a statement for him saying this story is a tissue of lies, complete nonsense. The child is not mine. When he sees the statement, he says, no, we can't put that out because that's not entirely true. And actually what ends up happening is he doesn't really make any public statement about the story at all. So the result of that is that in the next few days and weeks, the story spread. So within days, more than 100 newspapers have reprinted it.

And at Republican rallies, people start chanting, Ma, Mar, where's my par? In other words, this is their venture loquising the abandoned child. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because obviously now a scandal like this would just go completely viral in a matter of minutes. Yeah. But how long does it take to kind of pick up momentum in a pre-internet age? Oh, I think it actually is quite quick.

I think other newspapers are reporting the story or reprinting bits of the story within, certainly within a week. Do they manage to track down Maria? Well, as we will see, there is a massive, massive feeding frenzy. People rushing to track down, not Maria, but anybody who knew her or anybody who knew Cleveland in Buffalo and so on and so forth. So yes. So where is she at this point? So she has moved elsewhere in New York State. I can't exactly remember where.

But she has been getting on with her life, I suppose. She's been living in relative obscurity. So she has left Buffalo and there's a race in the American media to be the person that tracks her down and finds her story in her own voice. Whether they ever do really do that, we will come on to, Tom. Anyway, one of Cleveland's supporters who is a judge, a Democratic New York judge called Horatio King, eventually comes out with a statement. He says, look, the governor asked me to go to Buffalo to look into. this matter. I have looked into this matter. This is the truth. He says a few years ago, the governor was, and I quote, sowing his wild oats. He met this woman and became intimate with

her. She was a widow and not a good woman by any means. Very gallant. Yes. Mr. Cleveland, hearing this, began to make inquiries and discovered that two of his friends were intimate with her at the same time as himself. Again, not exactly the height of chivalry. And Dominic, can I just ask, This guy is called King. Is he any relation to the doctor, King? No, he's not. No, that's just a coincidence. Nothing to do with it.

So this guy, Horatio King, says, Cleveland was intimate with this woman, but he was not the father. The father was one of these friends of his who was married with a daughter. So Cleveland decided very generously to cover for him. I quote,

he took care of the child and mother like a man and did everything in his power for them until the woman became a confirmed victim. him of alcoholism. He never separated the mother and child, nor did he do anything to injure the woman. He was throughout the affair a victim of circumstances. He accepted responsibilities that not one man in a thousand has shouldered, and he acted honorably in the matter. So, this is an alternative version of the story. Cleveland did have relations with Maria Halpin, but was not the father. And was the father supposedly the best friend?

Well, this is the implication, isn't it? That it certainly could be. best friend, exactly. Now, at this point, there's a massive media-feeding frenzy. The Republican papers are competing to denounce Cleveland as an absolute debauchy and a libertine. The Democrat papers paint Maria as a mad woman and as a hussy, that's sort of a scarlet woman. The Boston Globe, for example, said, Mrs. Halpin is evidently in epileptic. They claimed they tracked her down and had found her. She has every symptom of insanity. Her eyes are glasses. She can't look her question her in the face. She has trembling, twitching. and sudden starts at every unexpected noise peculiar to insane persons.

Now, the problem with all this, the reason I'm being slightly evasive about have they tracked her down or not, is at this point, so the 1880s, it is very common for newspapers to invent stories out of thin air and to fabricate quotes. So the Globe has her saying, despite the fact they say she's mad, they then say she has nothing but praise for Grover Cleveland. I hope Mr. Cleveland will be elected.

He's a good plane on. honest, man, who has always been friendly to me and used me kindly. It's a shame that newspapers should have issued such lies. So this is presumably a Democrat supporting newspaper. Of course it is. I don't think she ever spoke to the Boston Globe, actually. And the fact that the newspapers are falling into line, you know, that leads us quite nicely to how this changes or doesn't change the presidential race. Because we already mentioned the sex scandal in the 1990s, the Clinton Lewinsky sex scandal. And of course, there are lots of sex scandal. And of course, there are lots of sex scandals in, for example, the 2016 presidential election.

And what I would say all these things have in common is they don't change people's minds at all. People simply divide on party lines. And they did this in 1884. And it is a very famous example. Now, there's always anything to do with America in the 19th century. There's always a Mark Twain quotation. And there actually is a Mark Twain quotation about this.

I think he last featured on the rest of history in our series on the Belgian Congo, didn't he? He did. Yeah. So this is slightly earlier Mark Twain. He was a lifelong Republican, but he's decided to break with them about corruption. He thinks Blaine is too corrupt, and he's going to vote for Cleveland. And Twain writes, he says, this story is absolute nonsense. And then he says, even if it isn't nonsense, yeah, who cares?

Who cares if Cleveland slept with this woman? To see grown men, apparently in their right mind, seriously arguing against a bachelor's fitness for president because he had private intercourse with a consenting widow isn't human nature of the most consummate sham and lie that was ever invented. Do any of the papers, in your opinion, get to interview Maria? I mean, are there any substantiated interviews with her? Are they all made up?

I mean, it seems very difficult to work out what's going on here. I would say, no, there's none that we can trust. There are more interviews to come, by the way, and there's another statement to come which might change your opinion of the case, Tom. and at that point you might change your mind, but I think we have to be really, really careful with any of them. Okay. So the weeks go by, the campaign is really, really intense.

It's obviously going to be very close. The big issues are, I mean, it's no one, no one cares about the Gilded Age because the issues might seem, some of this to be very dreary. They are civil service reform and tariffs. Oh, people love tariffs. So Blaine and the Republicans love tariffs at this point. So that hasn't changed.

Right. Cleveland is a bit more of a free trader, but he keeps quiet about this or downplays it because he knows the American people in a very tariff-friendly mood. At the same time, the Republicans, because they know it's going to be close and they're going to lose the White House for the first time in a generation, they are going berserk what's called waving the bloody shirt, which means basically disinterring the corpses of the civil war. Right. So if the Democrats get in, then it's back to slavery. Well, they say basically Cleveland will, what would he do? he will stop paying pensions to veterans of the Union Army, and he'll pay reparations to former slaveholders in the South, both of which are completely untrue. And the most famous example, actually, is there's a Protestant minister who just a few

days before the election makes a public speech saying that the Democrats of the Party of Rum, Romanism, and rebellion, i.e. they're drunks, they're Catholics, and their Confederates. So it's all good, sort of invective. But none of this really lands, and it's a lot of it looks as though Cleveland might just win. And then with just four days to go, there's another bombshell. On the 31st of October, the Chicago Tribune, Republican paper, publishes an affidavit signed by Maria Halpin. She says, I have actually kept quiet in all this.

You know, these quotes attributed to me are not true. I've been keeping quiet. I've kept my head down while the suffering inflicted on me by Grover Cleveland has been in the papers. But now I've decided to speak up. She says, Glover Cleveland absolutely was the father of my child, but the nature of our relationship was darker than anybody knows. This is the true story. On the 15th of December, 1873, so 11 years ago, I was on my way to a birthday party when I met Grover Cleveland, and he persuaded me to go and have dinner with him at the Ocean House restaurant. We had dinner, and then he walked me home to

my rooms and Swan Street, as he had done many times. He walked her home. He went to upstairs with her, and then, while in my rooms, he accomplished my ruin by the use of force and violence and without my consent. After he had accomplished his purpose, he told me that he was determined to ruin me if it cost him $10,000 or if he was hanged by the neck for it. So ruin, meaning rape. So ruin meaning rape. In other words, exactly, he raped her. Now, some listeners at this point might say, oh, well, if that's the case, why didn't Maria helping go to the police straight away? The answers are obvious. It's difficult for a woman to go to the police today.

It's even more difficult in 1873 when there's a presumption that an honorable woman would not be in that position. There was also a presumption that a woman could always resist if she wanted to. And Maria, of course, would have known that a jury would look very unkindly on the fact that she had allowed Cleveland to escort her home and then come upstairs with her. And that if she didn't have visible evidence of assault, it's very unlikely, especially against a former sheriff, that she would win the case. Now, just in terms of the campaign itself, a lot of listeners may say, well, my God, an allegation of rape four days before the presidential campaign,

surely this must be curtains for Cleveland. But those listeners will perhaps be shocked to hear this has absolutely no electoral impact as far as we can tell, because when the voters go to the polls, Cleveland and Blaine are neck and neck. Cleveland gets 48.8%. Blaine, 48.3%. The election actually comes down to 2,500 voters across a handful of northeastern states, places like New York and New Jersey. And they go for Cleveland, not for Blaine. So after almost 30 years, the Democrats are back in the White House. And Cleveland, who's 47, will at this point be the second youngest president in American history. And so now the Democrats can add an extra line to that Republican song.

Ma, Mar, where's my par? They now sing that song and they sing, gone to the White House. Ha, ha, ha. Actually, the only Democrat who isn't pleased is Cleveland. He's very miserable about having one. He said to a friend, I look upon the next four years as a dreadful self-inflicted penance for the good of my country. I can see no pleasure in it and no satisfaction. So there you go.

But some of our listeners, Tom, may be thinking, well, I mean, who cares what he thinks? He's a rapist. He's an abuser. You know, he's a terrible villain. And how is it that Americans could put such a man with such allegations hanging over him into the White House? How indeed. Well, so let's have a look at her story again and answer some of those questions. The most recent biography of Cleveland is by a guy called Troy Seneca.

It's called A Man of Iron and it was published in 2022. And he has some interesting things to say about all this. So first of all, he answers your question, Tom, about the sources. He says, come on, all of these papers are partisan Republican papers. The person who's giving them the information, George Ball, is a fervent Republican supporter. And Maria's own words always come to us through Republican journalists. Do we know where Maria is at this point, what she's doing? She's sort of lurking around in New York State in various sort of, the people are trying

to sort of track her down. She, you know, there's some sense that she may have given the odd interview, where she's certainly signed affidavits, but whether she's read them is a different matter. So she's trying to keep her head down and escape the press in sort of small town, New York. Now, to go back to the allegations, some of them clearly are mad. Cleveland was not a, he liked your drink, but he's not a drunk. He doesn't get into fights. He doesn't hang around with prostitutes.

I mean, at one point, right, that guy, George. George Ball, the minister said, Cleveland drove the carriage that killed his friend, Oscar Folsom. Okay, well, that is a twist. I mean, that's totally untrue. All of that said, Troy Sennick in his biography, says, clearly Cleveland did know this woman. I mean, I think she definitely knew her. He definitely courted her. I think it's very probable that they slept together.

And he may have been the father of her child. Although, let's just hold that thought and come back to it a little bit. So I think there's another possibility. As for the stuff about kidnapping the child and putting her in an asylum, it does seem very close to Victorian sensation fiction, doesn't it? I mean, we've made that point many times, but there's a slight sense, perhaps, that if you're an enterprising journalist who's read a lot of Wilkie Collins, this is the story you'd invent. And particularly because the villain of the woman in white, his salient feature is that he's very fat. Yes. And that's also the salient feature of Graver Cleveland.

So perhaps, again, it prompts them to come up with maybe that particular melodramatic spin. Exactly. And let's take two elements of that. First of all, the orphanage. Even the Buffalo Telegraph, which broke this story, admitted that Maria Halpin had been driven to drink. So it's perfectly possible that Cleveland's friends or people in the city might have taken the baby and put it in an orphanage thinking they were doing what was right. And there's also some suggestion that Maria had made death threats against Cleveland. Evelyn, and indeed said, I will take my own life and that of the baby.

In that case, maybe it is plausible. The baby would, as it were, be taken into care. As for her being locked up in the asylum, I've perhaps slightly loaded this by not telling you the whole truth about the asylum. The asylum is basically, it's not a Victorian sort of, you know, it's not like a workhouse. Manical or something. No, it's a charitable organisation run by Catholic nuns.

It was quite progressive by the standards of the day. It also treated alcoholics as well as. as people who were mentally ill. So in his book, Troy Seneca basically compares, says it's basically like a rehab center, like a sanatorium. And Maria, she wasn't locked up. She wasn't detained against her will.

Actually, she stayed there almost a week. Seems to have stayed almost a week voluntarily before walking out as a free woman. And finally, the payoff, $500. I could see you were itching to ask how much $500 would be. $500 in relative income terms is about $160,000 today.

So you may say still not enough to buy your child, as it were, but it's not... Not nothing. Exactly. Now, finally, we come to the most controversial element, the rape. A lot of listeners, I think, would say automatically you should believe the woman. And I completely understand why they'd say that. I suppose the question is, are we hearing a woman's words?

Or are we hearing the words of a journalist? Exactly. Because which one would you believe? First of all, there's the Maria Halpin quoted in the Chicago Tribune, who says Cleveland accomplished my ruin by force and violence. But then there's a Maria Halpin quoted four days later in the Detroit Free Press who says, I was tricked into signing that statement under pressure. I never even read it. She says, it's all lies. There's no rape. I have no fault whatever to find in Mr. Cleveland. Now, the problem is that's in a Democrat newspaper. So one of these statements, is clearly untrue. But both could be. Or both could be. And what's worse? We know both sides were drafting statements for her to read and sign because the Republicans got hold of one prepared by the Democrats and leaked it and said, look at this. The Democrats are trying to force this poor woman to sign a statement. They were doing the same, of course. So we never actually get a sense of the real Maria Halper. We never hear her speak unmediated by partisan kind of intermediaries.

So that's a big problem. Now, to go back, I said I'd leave one thing hanging, which was a possibility about the child. Come back to it. The child's name is so strange. Oscar Folsom, Cleveland. Oscar Folsom, his best friend and then Cleveland's surname. That would sort of make sense of Cleveland had chose it. But then, why would he put his own surname on the baby if he's trying to cover it up?

Because it's so obvious. Now, in the last days of the campaign, another Detroit paper says, said, quote, if the whole truth is ever told, it will show Cleveland has taken the part of an honorable man. This intimation involves the memory of a departed friend, a departed friend, Oscar Folsom. In other words, I think there's a strong possibility that Folsom was the father, that maybe they both slept with this woman. Cleveland did cover it up, did take the blame for it. When it came out, he was very angry because it's a slur on his friend, but also, he wants to protect Emma, the widow with whom he's very close, and her daughter, Francis, who is his legal ward. And where the truth lies in all this, it's impossible to tell. Now, some listeners may be thinking, yeah, but who's this bloke, Troy Sennick, who is covering for Cleveland? So which side of the political divide is he on? We're in a hall of mirrors once again, Tom. Because on the one hand, Troy Sennick used to be a speechwriter for George W. Bush. So a Republican. Yeah.

So some people may say that shows terrible judgment to be writing speeches for George Shipley Bush. But so I googled Troy Sennick. And do you know what I found? I found his Twitter feed. And the very first thing I found on his Twitter feed, Tom, with these words, Tom Holland and Dominic Sambrick are treasures. And it is lovely for once to have an ultra popular podcast that you don't have to worry

will make society dumber. Wow. That's the revelation. What judgment. And what does he say has gone on? because whatever he says, I'm backing his opinion now. He says Cleveland has been framed by partisan Republicans, and the Cleveland was a tremendous fellow.

Okay, well, in that case, that's closed. And to be honest, he's not the only Cleveland biographer to make that case. So the canonical Cleveland biographer for a lot of the 20th century's guy called Alan Nevins, who was a massively distinguished professor at Columbia University, one of the Pulitzer Prize. He said this was pure Republican scandal mongering. And is this another of those vast American presidential barricableness? is six thousand pages long exactly mevin's thought that cleveland had slept with maria

help in but um he said she was a loose woman now just because he's a distinguished historian doesn't mean he was right of course i mean we might well have different attitudes from alan evans but to repeat the key point we can never hear maria's voice there's no way of knowing which maria to believe so what happens to her no way does she live for long do people interview her after the kind of the turbulence and the high passions of the presidential campaign? No, she vanishes. She moved to New Rochelle, New York. She married again. She was widowed again. She married again. And she ended up dying in 1902. And just to sort of say farewell to Maria, the papers printed her dying wishes. They reported, oh, a woman who was in a famous scandal 20 years

ago has died. And they printed her dying wishes. Do not let the funeral be too public. I do not want strangers to come and gaze on my face. Let me rest. Which is lovely, but I think is probably again made up. I mean, I don't believe somebody spoke like that on their deathbed. Oh, poor woman. So just people endlessly putting words into her mouth. Exactly. So let's tell people as well what happened to Grover Cleveland. To go back to the scandal, obviously some listeners may still think Grover Cleveland was guilty. Is it plausible, really? The whole thing was invented? On the other hand, is it plausible he behaved so badly? I'll tell you what I think right at the end of the episode, but just to tell you what happened to Cleveland himself and the other

characters. Cleveland became president. He was, he's famously a sort of quite a passive laissez-faire president. So he vetoed more spending bills than all his predecessors put together. So he's kind of a classical liberal in some ways. Limited government, sound money, all of this. He lost his bid for re-election to the ultimate AI-generated generic Gilded Age president, who's a man called Benjamin Harrison, who's actually, I mean, he's actually, he really is boring. I know we got into trouble before for calling Ulysses S. Grant boring, and our American listeners went berserk. I mean, Benjamin Harrison really is boring. He's very interested in tariffs.

That's his big thing. But to be fair, Donald Trump's very interested in tariffs, and he's certainly not boring. No, he's not boring. It is possible to be interested in tariffs and still dominate the headlines. I think you've got to have more in your locker, and I don't think Benjamin Harrison does. Does he have a big beard? Massive. Absolutely massive. He was present for four years, and then in 1892, Cleveland ran again, and he, again, it was all

about tariffs. Cleveland won again. Then he had a second term that was consumed by economic arguments. There was a massive depression. They have huge arguments about whether to inflate the currency with silver. It's very esoteric, I think, to modern audiences. Also, Cleveland disgraced himself, actually, Tom. He took Venezuela's side in a boundary dispute with Great Britain. Oh, my God. And they almost came to war. He almost went to war with Lord Salisbury.

Now, here's the thing that will make you think differently about Cleveland, possibly. When Cleveland became president, he was still a bachelor. Now, people said, gosh, is this not the point where he could marry his friend's widow, Emma? Now, he's been very nice to Emma and to her daughter, Francis. He's bought Francis lots of presents. He bought her a puppy. He has bought her a puppy. and she calls him Uncle Cleve.

Is she? Now, Francis has grown into a very glamorous young woman. She goes off to Wells College, which is a sort of liberal arts college straight finishing school. And her friends at Wells College noticed that she's got a regular correspondent who sends her bouquets of red roses. Now, you may be wondering, who is this dashing young Swain? Who has stolen her heart?

Is it Uncle Cleve? It is Uncle Cleve. So as soon as she's graduated, he proposes. He's 48. She's 21. They get married in the White House. And do you know what? It's very successful and happy.

Everybody loves her. They had five children. The newspapers, I have to say, very ungallantly, speculated whether Cleveland, who is now about 80 Stone, whether he would crush her on their wedding night. So aside from the weight, he's basically the Woody Allen of American presidents.

I guess so. I hadn't thought of that. And, of course, another New Yorker. Yeah, so. Anyway, he left office in 1897 and he retired to Princeton. He died in 1908. Francis married a Princeton professor. She died in 1947, which is the same year that his son died. I mean, this is a guy who really, you know, lost to history, Oscar Folsom Cleveland. So what happened to him? Well, remember, he ended up being taken by the doctor.

Dr. King. Dr. King. Well, here's the thing. He spent the whole of the rest of his life as James E. King, Jr. he clearly got on well with his parents. And when you say parents, do you mean the doctor, Dr. King? Yes, Dr. King and his wife. Because he remained close to his mother in particular after his father died. And he followed his father into the same area of medicine. His father had been an obstetrician and James E. King, Jr. became a gynecologist.

And does he ever investigate who his real father might have been or anything? Oh, he knows who his real father is, I think. But who is his real father? Because we don't know. Grover Cleveland or Folstham or. Well, okay, here's my verdict. I have to admit, when I first read this story, I assumed that Cleveland was guilty. But while preparing the episode, and I also influenced by the excellent judgment of Troy Seneck.

I came to change my mind. It's for three reasons. Number one, because we never hear Maria's voice and mediated by Republican journalists, I think you cannot say Cleveland's guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I mean, that's just not possible. you know, because we've never heard her evidence, really. Number two, the initial accusations were so lurid and so mad. Cleveland having bar fights and saloons.

Yeah, I mean, that's what immediately leaps out at you when you were telling it, was that the contradiction between the image of him as kind of sober and respectable and the idea that he's getting arrested in bars. I mean, surely there would be a police record if that was the case. Exactly, of course. Well, you're not if you're the sheriff. This is the show. I guess not.

It's like sort of Gene Hunt in Life on Mars. But obviously he wasn't that personality, right? He's just not that. So all of that stuff. So if all of that stuff is mad and invented, then the rest of it is surely tainted. You know, I don't think you can pick and choose. Can I also ask, so when the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke,

lots of women came forward. Yes. And that's a kind of familiar pattern with famous men who... are kind of nailed for being sexual predators. Are there any other women who come forward? No. I mean, that's not conclusive. Obviously, it's not conclusive, but it's suggestive perhaps.

There had never been the slightest whiff of scandal. And this is the third point. So Cleveland's character. Now, it is absolutely true that a lot of apparently very boring and very decent men turn out to be very bad men, sexual abusers or rapists or whatever. But is it plausible that this man who's basically a man's man's man and he likes a cigar and stuff, but he's also a massive workaholic with a reputation for incorruptibility and honesty and so on. Is it really plausible all the stuff about kidnapping the baby, locking this woman in an asylum, you know, all of that?

Given what we know of his character, is that plausible as well, I find that hard to believe. And I think because you have to take the whole package, you know, or none of it, I'm much more tempted to take none of it. The fact that he knew Maria and he may have slept with her and may have got her pregnant. Yeah. I mean, that is the kind of the stratum on which perhaps this kind of more lurid melodrama is constructed. And on that theme, I just wondered, kind of listening to this, whether fabricated scandals are like, faked paintings in that it can take the passage of decades or a century before you realize that it has been faked. Because when it's constructed, if it's part of the general culture, if everyone

is reading melodramas in which women are locked up in asylums, maybe it seems plausible, but at a distance, you start to recognize that the implausibility within the plots of the melodramers is also suggestive of an implausibility within the story that's being constructed. Maybe, although I think, to me, I think a lot of people at the time thought this was clearly nonsense. So it's not just you Mark Twain's

and people who are already very party-pre. But I think the fact that the story vanishes so quickly and that, as you say, no one else does come forward, there are no Republicans halfway through Cleveland's term saying, it's unbelievable this man is in the White House. He's an illegitimate president. It's disgusting that we've sunk to such a low, all of them. Which you would say if you thought this was true, wouldn't you?

Well, yeah, maybe. There's a slight sense of the Republicans. They tried it on. It didn't work. They moved on. Yeah, they've moved on. Would they have moved on so quickly? I mean, listen, this is not a definitive verdict by any means.

So it's not proven, but balanced probability. I would say. In fact, deep down, I think probably Oscar Folsom was the father, which is why Cleveland gave the boy. I mean, that seems very strange otherwise. That's the thing about history, isn't it, Tom? You know, we don't pretend, we don't purport to be the Oracle. I mean, Troy Seneca may think we are, but we're not the experts and everything, aren't we? And sometimes it's just unknowable.

Well, I think listeners can make up their own minds there. So thank you, Dominic. I now know a good deal more about Grover Cleveland than I did. I suspect that's true of many of our listeners. Thank you all for listening. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.