What was grover cleveland like

Fitness Magazine named him as the least-healthiest President, because of his penchant for beer drinking and cigar smoking. His first career was as a teacher.

Cleveland was a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in Manhattan before deciding to pursue a legal career. Cleveland ran for office in Buffalo and New York state as a reformer.

He gained quite a reputation as a fresh-faced politician who fought corruption and patronage. Republicans accused him of fathering an illegitimate child in Cleveland admitted it was possible, but his law partner, Oscar Folsom, may have also been the father. Cleveland won the first presidential election by the narrowest of margins. It was a win by just 1, votes in his adopted home state of New York that swung the election. During the administrations of Grover Cleveland, the municipal, state, and federal governments adopted numerous new laws, anticipating the reforms of the Progressive Era.

Cleveland asserted his independence from Congress with an unprecedented number of vetoes and forceful use of presidential authority in his second term. These actions prepared the way for the rise of autonomous presidential leadership, laying the foundation for the modern presidency fully realized by Theodore Roosevelt. National Portrait Gallery. Knowing the Presidents: Grover Cleveland. A staunch political and social conservative, Grover Cleveland was known for his integrity and reformist activities.

When he was elected governor of New York in , he went after the corrupt Democratic political machine of Tammany Hall, courageously defying the "Bosses" who controlled the party. Nominated on the second ballot at the Democratic convention, Cleveland won election by the smallest popular margin in American history.

The first Democratic president since the Civil War, Cleveland appointed Southerners to a number of posts. For the most part, he believed in a "hands off" presidency, avoiding involvement in proposed legislation, but quickly rejecting congressional actions he disapproved of. In fact, Cleveland vetoed more legislation than any president before him, gaining him the nickname "Old Veto.