A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [30]
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“WITHOUT MY CONSENT”
CLEVELAND’S TERM AS sheriff was coming to an end. On his last full day in office, New Year’s Eve 1873, he had a beefsteak dinner at Weber’s restaurant with his political crony, the livery owner John C. Level. The new sheriff was to be sworn in the following day, relieving Cleveland of the burden of a job he’d never wanted. Cleveland was in a cheery mood as he and Level sat down for a celebratory feast.
Beefsteak dinners on New Year’s Eve were a New York political tradition, and part of the custom was that men ate only with their fingers, caveman-style. Typically, an enormous quantity of food was ordered. For starters, hamburger, lamp chops, and kidneys wrapped in bacon. That was just the appetizer. The entrée consisted of a huge broiled steak, washed down by copious amounts of beer.
Cleveland, his lips perhaps loosened by alcohol, was unexpectedly open about his tenure as sheriff of Erie County.
“Grover told me that night that during his three years in office, he had cleaned up $20,000,” Level said. It was a gross undervaluation; others would later put Cleveland’s actual take as sheriff at $60,000, all in legal revenues. For every writ that was executed and summons served in Erie County, payment of a fee to the sheriff was required, and Cleveland took his fair percentage. As sheriff, he had also supervised the sale of foreclosed properties, and evictions; and for every such service he received a commission. It was grubby and squalid work, which was why the shrievalty was traditionally a magnet for dishonest political hacks. The office may have been beneath Cleveland’s dignity, but it had left him, at age thirty-five, on a solid financial footing for the first time in his life.
Returning to private practice, Cleveland had started a new law firm with his old bachelor roommate, the former district attorney Lyman K. Bass. The third named partner in the firm was a bright newcomer, Wilson S. Bissell, a Yale graduate. On the night Cleveland and Level were enjoying their beefsteak dinner, Bissell was celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday. Cleveland and Bissell had a lot in common. Physically, both were large in stature, and Bissell also appreciated a good joke.
Meanwhile, Bass was continuing his steady climb in politics. Having just been elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican, he was spending half the year in Washington. It was also an eventful time in his personal life. His days of confirmed bachelorhood were almost surely coming to an end. He was squiring one of Buffalo’s prettiest socialites, Frances Metcalfe, the twenty-two-year-old daughter of James Metcalfe, president of the First National Bank. The Metcalfes were celebrated in Buffalo for their sophisticated parties and social events, and Frances lived in her family’s Italianate villa on Mansion Row. The works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, and Goethe filled their magnificent library; and come the first sign of winter, servants would light its huge fireplace, which would remain lit until spring.
The firm of Bass, Cleveland & Bissell rented space in a five-story brick office building at the corner of Main and Swan known as the Weed Block. The National Weather Service also had an office in the building, as did a popular bookstore, and the Buffalo branch of Manufacturers and Traders Bank. The offices at Bass, Cleveland & Bissell were on the second floor. There was nothing lavish about them; their walls were lined with books, and in the main room there was a conference table and a cast-iron barrel stove resting on a large zinc plate. The space was illuminated with gas fixtures.
Cleveland’s living arrangements could not have been more convenient. In the