Who's Fillmore? What's He Done?

By Paul Gray

PRESIDENTIAL ANECDOTES by Paul F. Boiler Jr.; Oxford; 410 pages; $14.95

Nowhere does the Constitution stipulate that the nation's Chief Executive must be witty or charming or colorful. Strictly constructing, Presidents have every legal right to be stiffs. A goodly number of them have been. This unavoidable fact makes Presidential Anecdotes a rather remote relation to The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (1975), which roamed freely and often hilariously over centuries' worth of British biography and gossip. Historian Paul F. Boiler Jr. had to confine himself to the 39 Americans who, for better or worse, served among the acknowledged legislators of the world. Abraham Lincoln is here, but so, unavoidably, are James K. Polk, Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore.

Yet the material that Boiler has culled is fascinating even when the Presidents are not. Fillmore may have gone down in history as a nonentity, but it is rather touching to learn that he anticipated, and agreed with, this verdict. In 1855 he declined an honorary degree from Oxford University. He seemed eager to avoid the disdain that Oxford students heaped on outsiders: "They would probably ask, 'Who's Fillmore? What's he done?' "

From George Washington on, those elected to the nation's highest office found themselves variously confounded by conflicting demands. They were supposed to be of the people but a little above them, too; woe to them if they did not run the Executive Branch efficiently, and equal woe if they failed at improvident spellbinding. Small talk seems to have flummoxed some of them. During the 1824 campaign, John Quincy Adams was approached by an old farmer, who said: "My wife, when she was a gal, lived in your father's family; you were then a little boy; and she has often combed your head." Adams' reply effectively sank the exchange: "Well, I suppose she combs yours now." William Howard Taft's advisers desperately tried to hide his poor memory for names and faces. It did not work. Approached by a voter at one rally, Taft blurted out: "They tell me I ought to remember you, but bless my soul, I cannot recall you at all."

Then there was the matter of pressing the flesh. Polk and William McKinley both developed extensive theories about the best way to shake many hands without pain or injury; Lyndon Johnson could extend a normal greeting into something like a mugging. Some Presidents failed handshaking. Benjamin Harrison's grip was likened to "a wilted petunia," while one newsman described Woodrow Wilson's as "a ten-cent pickled mackerel in brown paper."

People over 40 remember Harry Truman's morning walks around Washington, but earlier Presidents were even more accessible. During the 19th century, occupants of the White House spent an inordinate amount of time listening to favor-seekers who walked in off the street. Lincoln seems to have been particularly besieged. One group urged him to appoint their candidate as Commissioner of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands because he was in poor health and would benefit from the climate. Lincoln replied: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for that place, and they are all sicker than your man." And J.Q. Adams used to enjoy strolling out in the early morning and swimming nude in the Potomac.

Such a scene is, sadly, unimaginable now. Presidents can no longer mingle, much less skinny-dip, in public (the last paragraphs in the book list some of Ronald Reagan's quips after the attempt on his life last March). All Presidents faced potential danger, of course, and assassination antedates the modern era. But Presidential Anecdotes is a reminder that the office was not always the fishbowl it has become. Presidents used to bump into people who did not recognize them. On the way to a reception, Ulysses S. Grant shared an umbrella with a stranger, who said: "I have never seen Grant, and I merely go to satisfy a personal curiosity. Between us, I have always thought that Grant was a very much overrated man." Grant's response was just right: "That's my view also."

Perhaps George Washington erred when he stifled the attempt of some supporters to make him King. A monarchy and its trappings might have freed future elected officeholders from the onerous duties of pomp and ceremony. Yet the presidency has stumbled through its ribbon cuttings, receiving lines and mumbled gaffes. Presidential Anecdotes is an entertaining thumbnail history of how this survival occurred. --By Paul Gray

EXCERPT

[Calvin Coolidge's] Vermont neighbors decided to recognize his devotion to the old family farm ... by giving him a handmade rake. The orator who presented the rake ... dwelt at length on the qualities of the hickory wood from which it was made.

'Hickory,' he said, like the President, is sturdy, strong, resilient, unbroken.' Then he handed the rake to Coolidge, and the audience settled back for his speech of acknowledgment. Coolidge turned the rake over, looked at it carefully, -- and said: 'Ash.'

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