Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb__ A Tour of Presidential Gravesites - Brian Lamb [85]
After all, the White House is the zenith of American ambition, attained by only a rare few of those bold enough to seek it. By succeeding in the highest arena, our presidents have earned their places as what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “inextinguishable beings.”
Shortly after the death of Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of Brooklyn, New York’s Plymouth Church, echoed Emerson’s distinction in a sermon on the newly filled tomb in Springfield. “Four years ago, O’ Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man and from among the people,” Beecher intoned. “We return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the nation’s; not ours but the world’s. Give him place, O’ ye prairies. In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism.”
Due to 24/7 TV coverage of presidential funerals, the recent deaths of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford have become coronations. Anybody who ever shook hands with Reagan or Ford became a prime interview candidate. For both men, long film tribute biographies were aired over and over again on the networks. Reagan and Ford were honored more in death than in life. The joke, “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” just doesn’t work anymore; the new parlor room game by the year 2000 was what major American politician wasn’t at the presidential memorial service. In death, modern U.S. presidents are guaranteed to get an upward revision by the general public. They are our own version of royalty. And the presidential tombs are routinely visited by school groups and campers, curiosity seekers and scholars, tourists and wanderers. Onlookers pause, if only for a moment, to pay private homage at the graves of the bold, often flawed men who have led our nation. Somehow at these final presidential resting places the pageant of democracy flourishes.
Remember me as you pass by
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now so you must be
Prepare for death and follow me.
—Traditional epitaph
Appendices
Appendix A
Presidents Who Died in Office
President Date of Death Place of Death
William Henry Harrison April 4, 1841 Washington, D.C.
Zachary Taylor July 9, 1850 Washington, D.C.
Abraham Lincoln (assassinated) April 15, 1865 Washington, D.C.
James Garfield (assassinated) September 19, 1881 Elberon, New Jersey
William McKinley (assassinated) September 14, 1901 Buffalo, New York
Warren G. Harding August 2, 1923 San Francisco, California
Franklin Delano Roosevelt April 12, 1945 Warm Springs, Georgia
John F. Kennedy (assassinated) November 22, 1963 Dallas, Texas
Source: Presidential Fact Book
Appendix B
Presidents’ Length of Retirement after Leaving Office
President Retirement
James K. Polk 103 days
Chester A. Arthur 1 year, 260 days
George Washington 2 years, 285 days
Woodrow Wilson 2 years, 337 days
Calvin Coolidge 3 years, 308 days
Lyndon Baines Johnson 4 years, 2 days
James Monroe 6 years, 122 days
Andrew Johnson 6 years, 149 days
James Buchanan 7 years, 89 days
Benjamin Harrison 8 years, 9 days
Dwight D. Eisenhower 8 years, 67 days
Andrew Jackson 8 years, 96 days
Ulysses S. Grant 8 years, 141 days
Theodore Roosevelt 9 years, 309 days
Grover Cleveland 11 years, 112 days (after second term)
Rutherford B. Hayes 11 years, 319 days
Franklin Pierce 12 years, 218 days
John Tyler 16 years, 320 days
William Howard Taft 17 years, 4 days
Thomas Jefferson. 17 years, 122 days
John Quincy Adams 18 years, 356 days
James Madison 19 years, 116 days
Richard Nixon 19 years, 256 days
Harry S. Truman 19 years, 340 days
Millard Fillmore. 21 years, 4 days
Martin Van Buren 21 years, 142 days
John Adams 25 years, 122 days
Herbert Hoover 31 years, 231 days
Gerald R. Ford 29 years, 342 days
Jimmy Carter ———
Ronald Reagan