A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [89]
I had carefully investigated the case and found the evidence of his guilt overwhelming. The sole object in writing it was to put the Advance on its guard and draw its attention to Mr. Cleveland’s immoralities.
Ball praised the Evening Telegraph and John Cresswell, saying the newspaper’s reporting had been truthful, thorough, and written “without exaggeration.”
“The editor of that paper is a Christian gentleman who would not knowingly publish an untruth. He took great pains to ascertain the facts before disclosing anything.
Like a stern pastor scolding his wayward flock, Ball asked Chicagoans to stop writing him and instead direct their inquiries to the Evening Telegraph if they wanted to order a copy of “A Terrible Tale”—singly or in bulk. “If people will send for it instead of writing to me, I shall be greatly obliged.”
By the first week of August, the entire country knew the name “George Ball.”
It was at this point that Henry Ward Beecher found himself thrust into the maelstrom. Beecher was the flamboyant minister of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn. His sister was, of course, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Beecher’s irreverent sermons in which he preached unconditional love and women’s suffrage proved so popular that he had become New York’s number one tourist attraction and, it was said, also the most famous man extant in America.
Beecher had championed Grover Cleveland’s run for governor of New York in 1882, and like the other independent Republicans of his era, he had been expected to join the bolt from Blaine and, in the name of reform and good government, endorse Cleveland in the 1884 presidential race. But a letter that Beecher wrote to George Peck, a prominent lawyer from Kansas, was leaked to the press and sent the Cleveland campaign into a tailspin of concern:
“Owing to late developments from Albany, I cannot and will not now, support Grover Cleveland the Democratic nominee for President in the coming election.”
The correspondence was replete with melodrama. As everyone knew, nine years before, Beecher had been sued for adultery following accusations that he seduced a married parishioner, Elizabeth Tilton. Jurors deliberated for six days but were unable to reach a verdict. It had been one of the most celebrated trials of the 19th century.
Beecher had somehow survived his sex scandal, while Cleveland was in the earliest stage of struggling to manage his own disgrace. The Cleveland campaign found itself facing yet another crisis: Beecher’s defection could potentially swing the election. In Brooklyn, he was a genuine political force. And it was said that as Brooklyn went, so would go the state of New York; and as New York went, so would go the nation.
Bringing Beecher back to the Cleveland fold was now the highest priority. General Horatio C. King was designated to talk things over with the preacher.
King came from a politically connected family; his father had served as U.S. postmaster general during the last three weeks of the Buchanan administration. Horatio King had been graduated from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and, when war broke out, was commissioned a captain in the Union Army. He fought gallantly at the Battle of Five Forks in Virginia, was discharged with the rank of colonel, and then returned to New York City to practice law. In 1871, King was named publisher of the Christian Union magazine—a publication whose editor in chief was Henry Ward Beecher. So King and Beecher had a history. Also, at Beecher’s recommendation, Governor Cleveland had recently named King to the post of judge advocate of the New York State National