VEEP
Who was Vice-President of these United States of America the year you were born?
Do you know?
Do you care?
It occurs to me that few couples - if any - ever name their newborn child after our
Vice-presidents. Do they? That sees an insensitive slight to a person who had to take second
place so often in his career. Many couples name their child after the President and some live
to rue the day, after post-administration revelations show the man to have been human
after all.
The Vice President in office when I was born was a man named Thomas R.
Marshall. Of course, that infant-naming idea would not have worked well, because I already
had an uncle, just a few years my senior, named Thomas.
Until recently, I had absolutely no idea who Thomas R. Marshall might have been if
anyone had asked me. We should honor of Vice-presidents more than we do. They seem go
unrecognized far too often. Second fiddle helps give the orchestral melody depth, quality
and meaning which makes it something worthy of attention.
So after seeing the name in a list of our thirty-two Vice-presidents, I decided to do a
little nosing around to see why he was chosen for the job. According to some accounts he is
said to have been our 28th Vice-Predidentxient indent, but I count only nineteen before him.
Anyone who attains to that office has something on the ball, you can be sure, and a reason
for being where he was at that time. Regardless of the official count, he was Vice-president
from 1912-1921. And, there were good reasons for his being there, too.
Woodrow Wilson was President in 1916 , the year I was born in Norfolk, Virginia
and it so happens I have lived a few minutes away from Wilson’s birthplace in Staunton,
Virginia ever since pre-World War II days - not counting four years or so except for those Army
and Air Force years I spent re-saving the world for Democracy. I have heard, talked and seen
a great deal about Wilson but I don’t recall hearing the name Thomas R. Marshall even
mentioned.
The very first thing which popped out when I started reading about my man Marshall
was that he is held accountable as the man who coined the expression: ”What this country
needs if a good five-cent cigar.” So, that alone, puts him in a class of much-quoted persons! It
also shows him to be a regular guy in many folksy ways , a cigar smoker, no doubt, and a
candidate for an early grave because of that filthy habit which has come into disrepute in
recent decades... and wisely so, I might add. Tom Marshall said that during a serious
discussion of the nation’s economic needs in the U.S. Senate. Tom Marshall spoke, you come
to feel , on behalf of the common man of his era.
My Dad smoked cigars, for instance, and he was a Democrat, too so I’m pretty certain
he voted for cigar-smoking, cigar-praising Thomas R. Marshal. Cigars prices, at
that mid-war time, must have been spiraling upward noticeably, so Marshals’ remark
was a timely economic comment. It strikes me that Marshall may well have been the
all-important connection with the people which Woodrow, with his academic background,
rather staid appearance and mien, and the heritage of stern Presbyterianism, may have
lacked. I can see Tom Marshall being the man who added the common touch, a genuine
connection with the people in the streets, during the Wilson-Marshall campaigns of 1911-12
and when they were re-elected in 1916.
Marshall was born in North Manchester, Indiana on March 14, 1854. He graduated from
Wabash College in 1873, studied law and was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1875. He
started his law practice in Columbia City, Indiana and was elected Governor of Indiana in
1908. His administration as governor was said to have been “progressive, resulting in new
labor laws for Indiana including new child labor legislation. He fell short of getting a new state
constitution adopted.
At the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore in 1912 was he was the favorite
son candidate of Indiana. When Woodrow Wilson was nominated for the office of the
President, Marshall was chose for the Vice-Presidential slot. They were reelected in 1916 and
he served as Vice President until 1921, acting also, of course, as presiding officer of the
Senate at which time he made the famous cigar statement.
` When President Wilson attended the peace conferences in Europe, Marshall presided
over the cabinet meetings. He was the first vice-president to do so, and during Wilson’s serious
illness, beginning in late 1919, Marshall considered the possibility of declaring himself Acting
President. He decided not to do so, partly because he feared such an action would divide
the country. Marshall died in Washington, D.C. June 1, 1925 which must have given him
sufficient time he to think and re-think his 1919 decision.
All of which makes me wonder if legislation has been put in place which would clarify
the proper passage of powers if the president were incapacitated. Certainly such an
important decision should not be left for the Vice-president to decide!
Check out your VEEP. You too will learn a few things, I’ll bet.
A.L.M. July 15, 2002 [c-888]
