A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [90]
King was forty-seven when he made his heartfelt appeal to the preacher to reassess his opposition to Cleveland. Speaking to Beecher as a public figure who had felt the humiliating sting of his own bout with sexual indiscretion, King’s words fell on sympathetic ears. Beecher said he was open-minded and suggested that King go to Buffalo to personally look into the Evening Telegraph’s charges and report back to him. This King agreed to do. How a political appointee of Grover Cleveland’s could be expected to conduct a credible investigation was not apparent, but in any event, King went to Buffalo on Monday, August 4, determined, he said, to get to the bottom of the case and put Beecher’s mind at rest. King seems to have spent most of his time with an Erie County supervisor who personally assured King that he had never heard of any “immoral” conduct on the part of Grover Cleveland. Two days later, he was on his way to Albany to call on Grover Cleveland at the state capital. The two men had a serious heart-to-heart.
“I told him,” King later said, “that Mr. Beecher was very much disturbed by these stories that have been circulated about him, and that I would like a statement from him about them.” Cleveland insisted that the account published in the Evening Telegraph was “false and scandalous.”
“I acted throughout as any honorable man should,” Cleveland informed King. As King recalled, “No man could have looked at the governor and not have felt that he was speaking the truth.” Cleveland asked King to do what he could to obtain a public endorsement from Beecher.
King proceeded on to Peekskill, where Beecher owned a magnificent estate that he had christened Boscobel, set on thirty-six acres of rich farmland. He had erected the mansion in 1879 at the then-enormous cost of $70,000, money he had earned from his lecture tours and books; but over the years, he had poured another $200,000 into expanding and improving his country manor. There were twenty-three rooms with breathtaking views of the Hudson River, and wallpaper so “exquisite” Beecher couldn’t bear to hang anything on them. But his favorite room was the tiny carpenter’s shop where in the summer he could often be found tinkering and hammering on his woodworking projects. Beecher had personally designed the gardens; groves of trees had been artfully grouped according to species, shape, and color of foliage. He also grew his own corn, peas, and strawberries; but considering the enormous expense of running Boscobel, he liked to joke that every cabbage he raised cost him $5.
When King called on Beecher, the great preacher showed him eighteen copies of “A Terrible Tale” that had been mailed to him from friends around the country. Everyone wanted to know what Beecher thought about the scandal. George Ball had also reached out, sending Beecher a personal letter explaining his involvement in the investigation. Now Beecher was eager to hear what King had unearthed in Buffalo.
“The paper in which the slander was originally published is an insignificant, sensational sheet,” King told Beecher, “and one of the strangest things is that other papers in good standing seem to give credence to the story.” Beecher must have nodded knowingly, perhaps recalling the lurid coverage of his own trial for adultery in 1875. King claimed that certain unnamed “prominent men”—no doubt meaning Blaine—were behind the Evening Telegraph’s allegations. All of Buffalo was “indignant” over the newspaper exposé, the general sentiment being one of utter contempt for the Evening Telegraph.
“I went everywhere and did quite a little bit of detective work on my own account. I learned enough to convince me that Cleveland had been wrongfully accused,” King said. “Like many men, Cleveland likes good living and good company, but he never goes to excess in anything.” It was a deft argument that must have resonated with Beecher, as Cleveland sounded very much like Beecher himself, at