A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [63]
In New York City, a sea of humanity had gathered at the cluster of newspaper offices on Park Row to await the results, but an eerie silence hung in the night air. People seemed dazed by the votes being posted for Cleveland, wondering if the figures could be trusted. A steady murmur began about Cleveland advancing to the front row of candidates for president in 1884, just two years away.
When the final tally came in, Cleveland’s total came to 535,318 to Folger’s 342,464. Cleveland’s margin of nearly 200,000 votes was the largest majority ever recorded from any state in American history up to then.
Even Cleveland took pity on Folger, finding it preposterous that someone with as distinguished a career as the treasury secretary’s could suffer such a humiliating defeat at the hands of a politician “wholly unknown outside my own small community.” Twenty-five years later, his victory still confounded him. Looking back, Cleveland said he was “unable to understand it.”
Cleveland now faced six weeks of relentless activity. His first order of business was to tender his resignation as mayor, which he did on November 20, after serving only eleven months. He then turned over his law partnership to Bissell and the firm’s junior partner, George Sicard. Everything was happening so fast he had to candidly admit that he needed help. He reached out to Daniel Manning and asked the party chairman to recommend someone smart who knew Albany inside and out. Manning suggested Daniel S. Lamont, the clerk of the state assembly. Lamont was a former correspondent for the Albany Argus newspaper, which was owned by Manning. Like Edgar Apgar, Lamont had total command of the political and bureaucratic apparatus of the state government. He knew where all the bodies were buried. Manning directed Lamont to give Cleveland a hand, and when he arrived in Buffalo and introduced himself to the governor-elect, there was an immediate connection. Cleveland found the thirty-two-year-old Lamont to be just as smart as Apgar. Together they worked on policy and personnel for the incoming administration. There were just three weeks to go before the inauguration.
All this time, Cleveland continued to fret about the social life awaiting him as governor. For a while, he considered naming his sister Rose his official hostess. Since the death of their mother, Rose Cleveland had been living alone at the Cleveland homestead in Holland Patent. Now thirty-six, she was just like her brother, intellectually gifted but something of a misfit in social situations. Cleveland realized right away that it would not be a good fit. Then he came up with a temporary fix, at least in terms of running the mansion. William Sinclair was chief steward at the City Club in Buffalo. Everyone liked Sinclair. He’d be perfect. The two men sat down for a discussion, and Cleveland made him a nice offer. The next thing Sinclair knew, he had quit his job at City Club to serve as Cleveland’s valet and manservant.
In early December, Cleveland took a break from the transition to go to New York City for a reception in his honor at the elite Manhattan Club. Accompanied by Bissell, he left Buffalo by train on a Monday evening and pulled into Manhattan the following day at 11:00 a.m.
The reception at the Manhattan Club at 96 5th Avenue was shaping up to be a major event. It was Cleveland’s coming-out party, and the first opportunity for Democratic big shots on the national level to have a good look at the politician who was generating so much attention.
All the furniture in the Manhattan Club’s parlor had been taken out to accommodate the swarm of guests—it was “denuded,” went one description. Nevertheless, it was so crammed with power brokers it became almost impossible for anyone to move, and the orchestra had to be