Presidents

Washington, the eldest of six children from his father's second marriage, was born into the land poor gentry on February 22, 1732 at Wakefield Plantation, Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Until reaching 16 years of age, he lived there and at other plantations along the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, including the one that later became known as Mount Vernon.

Washington's education was rudimentary, probably provided by tutors but also possibly by private schools, and he learned surveying. When George's father, Augustine died (1743), his half-brother Lawrence, who had served in the Royal Navy, acted as his father substitute. As a result, the youth acquired an interest in pursuing a naval career, but his mother discouraged him from doing so.

At the age of 16, Washington joined a surveying party sent to the Shenandoah Valley by Lord Fairfax, a land baron. For the next few years, Washington conducted surveys in the frontier areas of Virginia and present West Virginia, and gained a life-time interest in the West. In 1751-52 he accompanied Lawrence, ill from tuberculosis, on a visit the latter made to Barbados, West Indies, just prior to his death (1752). It was here that Washington caught smallpox which immunized him from a disease which destroyed much of his army during the Revolution.

The next year, Washington began his military career when the Royal Governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, appointed him to the state malitia, as a major. That same year, as an emissary of the Governor and accompanied by guide Christopher Gist, he traveled to Fort Le Boeuf, Pennsylvania, in the Ohio River Valley, and delivered to French authorities an ultimatum to cease fortification and settlement in British territory to which the French gave a negative reply. During the trip, he tried to cement relations with various Indian tribes. Returning home, George almost drowned while crossing the fridged waters of the Allegheny River on a raft.

Winning the rank of lieutenant colonel and then colonel in the militia, in 1754 Washington led a force that sought to challenge French control of the Ohio River Valley, but met defeat at Fort Necessity, PA (an event that helped trigger the French and Indian War of 1754-63). Late in 1754, irritated by the lowering of his rank because of the pending arrival of British regulars, he resigned his commission. That same year, he leased Mount Vernon, which he was to inherit eventually in 1761.

In 1755 Washington reentered military service with the courtesy title of colonel as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock in an expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne. He barely escaped death when the French inflicted a defeat in the Battle of The Monongahela, PA. Braddock was killed with many of his soldiers. Washington had 2 horses shot out from under him and 4 bullet holes marked his coat.

As a reward for his bravery, Washington won his colonelcy and command of the Virginia's 300-man militia forces, charged with defending the colony's 350-mile western frontier. Because of the shortage of men and equipment, he found the assignment challenging. He returned to Fort Duquensne, captured it, and drove the French north. Late in 1758 or early in 1759, disillusioned over governmental neglect of the militia and irked at not winning higher rank, he resigned and headed back to Mount Vernon.

In 1759 Washington wed Martha D. Custis, a wealthy widow and mother of two children. The marriage produced no offspring, but Washington reared those of his wife as his own. During the period 1759-74, he managed his plantations and sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He supported the initial protests against British policies; took an active part in the nonimportation movement in Virginia; and, in time, particularly because of his military experience, became a Whig leader.

By the 1770's, relations between the colony and the mother country had become strained. Measured in his behavior but resentful of British restrictions and commercial exploitation, Washington represented Virginia at the First and Second Continental Congresses. In 1775, after the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, MA, Congress appointed him as commander in chief of the Continental Army.

It was apparent to many, including Washington, that this must be a War of Independence. This viewpoint was confirmed by Congress on July 4, 1776. Overcoming the severe obstacles of short enlistment, summer fighting, no military tradition and poorly trained, and severely contest by Congress of supply and pay, he eventually fashioned an able fighting force. His first major victory was at Trenton and then Princeton a few days later in the end of December, 1776.

Ever on the run, the strategy Washington evolved consisted of continual harassment of British forces while avoiding general confrontations. Although his troops yielded much ground and lost a number of battles, they persevered even during the dark winters at Valley Forge, PA, and Morristown, NJ. Finally, with the aid of the French fleet and army, he won a climactic victory at the Battle of Yorktown, VA., in 1781.

During the next two years, while still commanding the unpaid and poorly supplied Continental Army, Washington denounced proposals that the military take over the Government, including one that planned to appoint him as king. But he supported army petitions to the Continental Congress for proper compensation.

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783) which officially terminated the war, Washington resigned his commission and trekked back once again to Mount Vernon. His wartime financial sacrifices and long absence, as well as generous loans to friends, had severely impaired his extensive fortune, which consisted mainly of his plantations, slaves, and landholdings in the West. At this point, however, he was to have little time to repair his finances, for his retirement was brief.

Dissatisfied with national progress under the Articles of Confederation, Washington and other leaders advocated a stronger central Government. He hosted the Mount Vernon Conference (1785) at his estate after the initial meetings in Alexandria, VA., though he apparently did not directly participate in the discussions.

Despite Washington's sympathies with the goals of the Annapolis Convention (1786), he did not attend. But the following year, encouraged by many of his friends, he presided over the Constitutional Convention, whose success was immeasurably influenced by his presence. Following ratification of the new instrument of Government, the electoral college unanimously chose him as the first President.

On April 30, 1789, after a triumphal journey from Mount Vernon to New York City, Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall. During his two terms, aware that his actions would set historical precedents, he governed with dignity as well as restraint. He provided the stability and authority the emergent Nation so sorely needed; gave substance to the Constitution, and reconciled competing factions and divergent policies within the Government and his administration.

Washington respected the role of Congress and did not infringe upon its prerogatives, but did challenge it on matters he felt to be of principle. He also tried to maintain harmony between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose differences typified evolving party divisions, from which the President attempted to keep aloof.

Yet, usually leaning upon Hamilton for advice, Washington supported his plan for the assumption of State debts, concurred in the constitutionality of the bill establishing the Bank of the United States, a postal system, and favored enactment of tariffs by Congress to provide Federal revenue and protect domestic manufacturers.

Washington took other steps to strengthen governmental authority, including suppression of the Whisky Rebellion (1794), Indian resistance in the Northwest Territory, and the founding of West Point. As a gesture of national unity, he toured the Northeast in 1789 and the South in 1791. During his tenure, the Government moved from New York to Philadelphia (1790), he superintended the planning for relocation to the District of Columbia, and he laid the cornerstone of the Capital (1793).

In foreign affairs Washington exerted dominance. He fostered United States interests on the North American Continent by treaties with Britain and Spain, though Jay's Treaty with Britain was controversial. Yet, until the Nation was stronger, he insisted on the maintenance of Neutrality. For example, when war broke out between France and England in the wake of the French Revolution, he ignored the urgings of both pro-French Jefferson and pro-British Hamilton.

Although many people encouraged Washington to seek a third term, he was weary of politics and refused to do so. In his `Farewell Address' (1796), he urged his countrymen to put aside party spirit and sectional passions and to avoid entanglements in the wars and domestic policies of other nations.

Washington enjoyed only a few years of retirement at Mount Vernon. Even then, demonstrating his continued willingness to make sacrifices for his country, in 1798 when the country was on the verge of war with France, he agreed to command the Army, though his services were not ultimately required. He died at the age of 67 in 1799.

Adams, descended from a long line of yeomen farmers and the eldest of three sons, was born in 1735 at Braintree (later Quincy), Massachusetts, and was himself the father of a distinguished family. He graduated from Harvard College in 1755, and for a short time taught school at Worcester, Mass. At that time, he considered entering the ministry, but decided instead to follow the law and began studying with a local lawyer.

Adams was admitted to the bar at Boston in 1758, the same year he took an M.A. degree at Harvard, and began to practice in his hometown. Six years later, he married Abigail Smith, who was to give birth to three sons (one of whom was John Quincy), and two daughters. She was thus the only woman in U.S. history to be the wife of one President and the mother of another, and she was also the first mistress of the White House.

Like many others, Adams was propelled into the Revolutionary camp by the Stamp Act (1765), a revenue law passed by the British requiring publications in the American colonies to bear a tax stamp. In 1765 he wrote a protest for Braintree that scores of other Massachusetts towns adopted. Three years later, he temporarily left his family behind and moved to Boston. He advanced in the law, but devoted more and more of his time to the patriot cause. In 1768 he achieved recognition throughout the Colonies for his defense of John Hancock, whom British customs officials had charged with smuggling.

Adams later yielded to a stern sense of legal duty but incurred some public hostility by representing the British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre (1770). Ill health forced him to return to Braintree following a term in the colonial legislature (1770-71), and for the next few years he divided his time between there and Boston.

A 3-year stint in the Continental Congress (1774-77), punctuated by short recuperative leaves and service in the colonial legislature (1774-75), brought Adams national fame. Because he was sharply attuned to the temper of Congress and aware that many Members resented Massachusetts extremism, he at first acceded to conciliatory efforts with Britain and restrained himself publicly. When Congress opted for independence, he became its foremost advocate, rejecting conciliation and urging a colonial confederation.

Adams was a master of workable compromise and meaningful debate, though he was sometimes impatient. He chaired 25 of the more than 90 congressional committees on which he sat, the most important of which dealt with military and naval affairs. He played an instrumental part in obtaining Washington's appointment as commander in chief of the Continental Army. Adams was a member of the 5-man committee charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence in June, 1776, though he probably made no major changes in Jefferson's draft. But, more directlyinvolved, he defended it from its congressional detractors,advocated it to the wavering, and guided it to passage.

The declaration battle won, exhausted by the incessant toil and strain and worried about his finances and family, Adams in 1777 retired from Congress. He headed back to Braintree intending to resume his law practice. But, before the month expired, Congress appointed him to a diplomatic post in Europe -a phase of his career that consumed more than a decade (1777-88).

Adams served in France during the period 1778-85, interrupted only by a visit to the U.S. in the summer of 1779, during which he attended the Massachusetts constitutional convention. Independent-minded and forthright, as well somewhat jealous of the fame and accomplishments of others, he frequently found himself at odds with fellow diplomats Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, as well as French officials, whose policies he mistrusted. He joined Franklin and John Jay, however, in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783), by which Britain recognized the independence of the United States.

Meanwhile, during the preceding 3 years, Adams had persuaded the Dutch to recognize the Colonies as an independent Nation, grant a series of loans, and negotiate a treaty of alliance. As the first American envoy to Great Britain (1785-88), he strove to resolve questions arising from the Treaty of Paris and to calm the harsh feelings between the two countries.

Back in the U.S., Adams was soon elected as the first Vice President (1789-97), an office he considered insignificant but in which he emerged as the nominal leader of the Federalist Party. The real leader was Alexander Hamilton, whose political manipulations coupled with peculiarities of the electoral system at the time, resulted in Adams being saddled as President with his political enemy Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party, as his Vice President - the only instance in U.S. history where such a situation occurred. Also, Adams' principal Cabinet members answered to Hamilton.

Adams replaced Washington as President in 1797. His problems did not end with Jefferson. Adams also faced a hostile Congress, and he inherited the deep political discord between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians that had taken root during Washington's administration. The resulting party warfare, of which Adams bore the brunt, was generated by the strong personal and political differences between the two men and partisanship that arose out of the philosophical,diplomatic, and economic ramifications of the wars of the French Revolution between Great Britain and France.

Britain was not particularly solicitous of the rights of American shipping, but the major obstacle to peace was the belligerency of France toward U.S. ships carrying British goods and seamen serving on British warships. Hamilton and most Federalists, drawing closer to the old enemy Britain, favored war with France as a way of uniting the country and building a strong Army and Navy. The Jeffersonians, controlling roughly half the votes in Congress and friendly toward War for Independence ally France, opposed war as far as they dared, but public opinion was warlike.

If Adams had asked for a declaration of war, the antiwar party could not have stopped it. The XYZ affair (1797-98) was a secret attempt on the part of Adams to resolve French and American differences. Rational discussion of political differences between the two parties degenerated into an even more shrill exchange of insults. Bitter frustrations found release in the Federalist-backed Alien and Sedition Acts (1789) which were a group of 4 laws passed to make things difficult for French residents and supporters in the U.S. The Democratic- Republican response was in the Kentucky (1798) and Virginia (1799)Resolutions which stated that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not expressly given to it by the Constitution. Such laws could be nullified by the states.

The statesmanlike Adams maintained a neutral stance without abandoning his principles. While a Navy and Marine Corps was established, he the U.S. out of a declared war with France achieving an amicable peace. But, always more a political philosopher than a politician, he proved unable to unite his party, divided by the machinations of Hamilton, who encouraged congressional opposition to Adams, and the implications of the French Revolution. The Jeffersonians pushed the Federalists out of office in the election of 1800, the same year that the Government and its 150 employees moved from Philadelphia to the incomplete Capital in the District of Columbia and the Adamses occupied the White House.

Adams spent his later years quietly at Quincy, where he resided in his home `Peacefield,' which he had purchased in 1787.

The death of his wife in 1818 saddened him, but he never lost interest in public affairs and lived to see his son John Quincy become President. John, the longest lived Chief Executive, died at the age of 90, just a few hours after Jefferson, with whom he had become reconciled, on July 4, 1826 - dramatically enough the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

The eldest of 2 sons in a family of 10, Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 at Shadwell, a frontier plantation in Goochland (present Albermarle) County, Virginia. But 2 years later his father, Peter, a self-made surveyor-magistrate-planter who had married into the distinguished Randolphs, moved his family eastward to Tuckahoe plantation, near Richmond. His reason for doing so was a promise he had made to his wife's newly deceased cousin, William Randolph, to act as guardian of his son. Young Jefferson passed most of his boyhood in the Randolph home, beginning his elementary education with private tutors.

In 1752, when Jefferson was about 9 years old, the family returned to Shadwell. His father died 5 years later and left him almost 3,000 acres; consequently, he became head of the family. In 1760, at the age of 17, he attended the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg. He graduated in 1762, studied law locally under the noted teacher George Wythe, and in 1767 was admitted to the bar. An incidental benefit was the chance to observe the operation of practical politics in the colonial capital.

Returning to Shadwell, Jefferson assumed the civic responsibilities and prominence his father had enjoyed. In 1770, when fire consumed the structure, he moved to his nearby estate, Monticello, where he had already begun building a home. Two years later, he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow. During their decade of life together, she was to bear 6 children, 1 son and 5 daughters, but only 2 of the latter reached maturity.

Meanwhile, in 1769 at the age of 26, Jefferson had been elected to the House of Burgesses, in Williamsburg. He was a member continuously until 1775, and aligned himself with the anti-British group. Unlike his associates, smooth-tongued Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, Jefferson concentrated his efforts in committee work rather than in debate. A literary stylist, he drafted many of the Revolutionary documents adopted by the House of Burgesses.

Jefferson utilized the same methods in the Continental Congress (1775-76), where his decisiveness in committee contrasted markedly with his silence on the floor. His colleagues, however, rejected several of his drafts the first year because of their extreme anti-British tone. But, by the time he returned the following May, after spending the winter in Virginia, the temper of Congress had changed drastically. The very next month, though only 33 years old, he was assigned to the 5-man committee chosen to write the Declaration of Independence, a task his associates assigned to him.

A notable career in the Virginia House of Delegates (1776-79), the lower house of the legislature, followed. Jefferson took over leader- ship of the 'progressive' party from Patrick Henry, who relinquished it to become Governor. High-lights of this service included revision of the State laws (1776-79), in which Jefferson collaborated with George Wythe and Edmund Pendleton; and authorship of a bill for the establishment of religious freedom in Virginia, introduced in 1779 but not passed until 7 years later.

Although hampered as Governor (1779-81) by wartime conditions and constitutional limitations, Jefferson proved to be a weak executive, even in emergencies hesitating to wield his authority. When the British pressed their invasion of the State in 1781, he recommended the combining of civil and military agencies under Gen. Thomas Nelson, Jr., and virtually abdicated office. Although he was later formally vindicated, the action fostered a conservative takeover of the government and his reputation remained clouded for some time.

Jefferson stayed out of the limelight for 2 years, during which time his wife died. In 1783 he reentered Congress, where he sponsored and drafted the Ordinance of 1784, forerunner of the Ordinance of 1787 (Northwest Ordinance) designed to create and govern the Northwest Territory and effectively opened the door to Western expansion. In 1784 he was sent to Paris to aid Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in their attempts to negotiate commercial treaties with European nations. During his 5-year stay, Jefferson succeeded Franklin as Minister to France (1785-89), gained various economic concessions from and strengthened relations with the French, visited England and Italy, absorbed European culture, and observed the beginnings of the French Revolution.

Jefferson returned to the U.S. in 1789. In the years that followed, interspersed with pleasant interludes and political exile at Monticello, he filled the highest offices in the land. Ever averse to political strife, he occupied those positions as much out of a sense of civic and party duty as personal ambition.

Aggravating normal burdens and pressures were Jefferson's feuds with Alexander Hamilton on most aspects of national policy, as well as the vindictiveness of Federalist attacks. These clashes originated while Jefferson was Secretary of State (1790-93) in Washington's Cabinet. Unlike Hamilton, Jefferson sympathized with the French Revolution. He favored States rights and opposed a strong central Government. He also envisioned an agricultural America, peopled by well educated and politically astute yeomen farmers. Hamilton took the opposite position.

These political and philosophical conflicts resulted in time in the forming of the Federalist Party and Democratic-Republican Party, which Jefferson co-founded with James Madison. In 1793, because of his disagreements with Hamilton and Washington's growing reliance on Hamilton for advice in foreign affairs, Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State. For the next 3 years, he remained in semi-retirement at Monticello.

In 1796, Jefferson lost the Presidential election to Federalist John Adams by only 3 electoral votes and, because the Constitution did not then provide separate tickets for President and Vice President, became Vice President (1797-1801), though a member of the opposing party. In 1800 the same sort of deficiency, soon remedied by the 12th amendment, again became apparent when Democratic-Republican electors, in trying to select both a President and Vice President from their party, cast an equal vote for Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. Only after a tie-settling election in the Federalist-controlled House of Representatives that shred both parties did Jefferson capture the Presidency; Burr became Vice President.

Jefferson, who was the first Chief Executive to be inaugurated at the Capital, called his victory a 'revolution'. Indeed, it did bring a new tone and philosophy to the White House, where an aura of democratic informality was to prevail. Despite the inter-party bitterness of the time, the transition of power was smooth and peaceful, and Jefferson continued many Federalist policies. Because the crisis with France had terminated, he slashed Army and Navy funds. He also substantially reduced the governmental budget. Although he believed in an agrarian America, he encouraged commerce.

In 1801-5 Jefferson deployed naval forces to the Morocco in the Mediterranean to subdue the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American vessels. During his second term, to counter English and French interference with neutral American shipping during the Napoleonic Wars, he passed an Embargo Act on foreign trade, for the purpose of avoiding involvement. But his measure proved to be unworkable and unpopular.

Jefferson's greatest achievements were in the realm of westward expansion, of which he was the architect. Foreseeing the continental destiny of the Nation, he sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1805-6) to the Pacific, though he knew it had to cross territory claimed by foreign powers. While that project was being organized, Jefferson's diplomats at Paris had consummated the Louisiana Purchase (1803), which doubled the size of the U. S. and extended its boundaries far beyond the Mississippi.

In 1809 Jefferson retired for the final time to Monticello. He continued to pursue his varied interest and corresponded with and entertained statesmen, politicians, scientists, explorers, scholars, and Indian chiefs. When the pace of life grew too hectic, he found haven at Popular Forest, his retreat near Lynchburg. His pet project during most of his last decade was founding the University of Virginia (1819), in Charlottesville, but he also took pride in the realization that two of his disciples, Madison and Monroe, had followed him into the White House.

Painfully distressing to Jefferson, however, was the woeful state of his finances. His small salary in public office, the attendant neglect of his fortune and estate, general economic conditions, and debts he inherited from his wife had taken a heavy toll. When a friend defaulted on a note for a large sum, Jefferson fell hopelessly into debt and was forced to sell his library to the Government. It became the nucleus of the Library of Congress.

Jefferson died only a few hours before John Adams at the age of 83 on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

A descendant of the planter aristocracy, Madison was born in 1751 at Port Conway, King George County, Virginia, while his mother was visiting her parents. In a few weeks with her newborn son, the first of 10 children, she journeyed back to Montpelier estate, in Orange County, which became his lifelong home.

Madison obtained his early education from his parents, tutors, and a private school. An excellent scholar though frail and sickly in his youth, he graduated (1771) from the College of New Jersey (present Princeton University), where he demonstrated special interest in Government and the law. But, considering the ministry for a career, he stayed on for a year of postgraduate study in theology.

Back at Montpelier, still undecided on a profession, Madison soon embraced the patriot cause, and State and local politics absorbed much of his time. In 1775 he served on the Orange County committee of safety; the next year, at the Virginia Convention, which advocated various revolutionary steps and framed the Virginia constitution; in 1776-77 in the House of Delegates (when the life-long friendship with Jefferson was established); and in 1778-80 in the Council of State. His ill health precluded military service.

Madison was chosen in 1780 to represent Virginia in the Continental Congress (1780-83 & 1786-88). Although originally the youngest Delegate, he played a major role in its deliberations. Meantime, in the years 1784-86, he had again sat in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Madison was a guiding force behind the Mount Vernon Conference (1785), attended the Annapolis Convention (1786), and was otherwise instrumental in the convening of the Constitutional Convention (1787). A major force at the Convention, he served on key committees and tirelessly advocated a strong Government. His Virginia Plan was in large part the basis of the Constitution. And his journal of the Convention, which was not published until after his death, remains the best single record of the event.

Madison also played a major part in guiding the Constitution through the Continental Congress. Leading the pro-ratification forces in Virginia, he successfully defended the instrument against powerful opponents. Earlier, in New York, where he was serving in the Congress, he collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in a series of essays that in 1787-88 appeared in the newspapers and were later published in book form as THE FEDERALIST (1788), a classic in political theory.

As a U.S. Representative (1789-97), Madison helped frame and pass the Bill of Rights. He also assisted in organizing the executive department and creating a system of Federal taxation. As leaders of the opposition to Hamilton's policies, he and Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party.

In 1794 Madison married a vivacious widow who was 16 years his junior, Dorothea ('Dolley') Payne Todd, who had a son; they were to raise no children of their own. Although spending the period 1797-1801 in semi-retirement, Madison authored the Virginia Resolutions, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts. While he served as Secretary of State (1801-9), his wife often acted as President Jefferson's hostess. Her lavish parties at the White House dazzled the Capital City for years.

In 1809 Madison succeeded Jefferson. Like the first 3 Presidents, Madison was enmeshed in the ramifications of European wars. Diplomacy had failed to prevent the seizure of U.S. ships, goods, and men on the high seas; and a depression distressed the country. Madison continued to negotiate with the warring parties and applied economic sanctions, eventually effective to some degree.

But continued British interference with American shipping created strong congressional sentiment for war. The 'War Hawks', a group of mostly young Democratic-Republican Congressmen from the South and West who were territorial expansionists as much as defenders of the national pride, urged naval action to punish the British, the conquest of Canada, and military measures to end British support of the Indians in the West. Eventually agreeing that U.S. honor and economic independence were at stake, in 1812 Madison asked Congress to declare war against Britain.

The young Nation was ill prepared. Federalist alienation in New England sapped the war effort. Poor leadership, inadequate troop strength, and supply and transportation problems frustrated the Army's efforts to conquer lightly defended Canada. At sea, despite victories in individual encounters, the U.S. Navy found itself unable to cope with the Royal Navy, which blockaded the coast.

The British captured Washington, burned the White House, Capital, and other buildings, and forced the Government to flee the city for a time. It was during a British attack on Fort McHenry at Baltimore that Francis Scott Key composed the 'Star Spangled Banner'. The war ended in stalemate in December 1814 when the inconclusive Treaty of Ghent, which nearly restored prewar conditions, was signed.

But thanks mainly to Andrew Jackson's spectacular victory at the Battle of New Orleans (Chalmette) in January of 1815, most Americans believed they had won. Twice tested, independence had survived and a boiling nationalism marked Madison's last years in office, during which period the Democratic-Republicans held virtually uncontested power.

During the last 3 years of his administration, Madison concentrated on his domestic program. Congress, concurring in 3 of his proposals, strengthened land and naval forces to avoid the repetition of raids on the Capital and to protect the country as a whole and its commerce; established the Second Bank of the United States; and enacted a protective tariff on foreign manufactures. Although Madison favored internal improvements, he vetoed on constitutional grounds a congressional bill that sought to finance the building of roads and canals with Federal funds.

In retirement after his second term, Madison managed Montpelier, but continued to be active in public affairs. He served as co-chairman of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829-30 and as Rector of the University of Virginia after 1826. Writing newspaper articles defending the administration of Monroe, he also acted as his foreign policy adviser.

Madison spoke out, too, against the emerging sectional controversy that threatened the existence of the Union. Although a slave-holder all his life, he was active during his later years in the American Colonization Society, whose mission was the resettlement of slaves in Africa. He passed away at the age of 85 in 1836.

Monroe was born in 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of a planter of modest means and the oldest of 5 children. He received his elementary education at a private school. In 1776, some 2 years after his father died, he discontinued his studies at the College of William and Mary. He immediately entered active service in the Continental Army, which the year before had awarded him a lieutenant's commission. During 4 years of service, he was wounded twice and advanced to the rank of major. Upon his discharge in 1780, he read law for 3 years with Thomas Jefferson, who became his lifelong adviser and friend.

Becoming active in politics, in 1782 Monroe entered the Virginia House of Delegates. The following year, he took a seat in the Continental Congress (1783-86). In 1786, when he joined the bar and established a private practice in Fredericksburg, he married Elizabeth Kortright. She was to bear 2 daughters and a son.

Meantime, Monroe had been reelected to the House of Delegates (1786-90) and attended the Annapolis Convention, one of the forerunners of the Constitutional Convention. Nevertheless, in 1788, indicative of his aversion to a strong central Government, he opposed the Constitution at the Virginia ratifying convention. That same year, James Madison soundly defeated him in a race for the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1790, when Monroe moved to Charlottesville, the Virginia legislature appointed him to the U.S. Senate (1790-94), where he became an advocate of Jeffersonian policies. Service as Minister to France (1794-96) and Governor of Virginia (1799-1802) followed. Reentering the diplomatic arena in 1803, he helped Robert R. Livingston negotiate the Louisiana Purchase from France and then held the position of Minister to Great Britain (1803-7), during which time he headed a special mission to Spain (1804).

In 1808, the year after Monroe returned to the U.S., he temporarily lost Madison's friendship by vainly challenging him for the Presidency. In 1810 Monroe once again won election to the Virginia House of Delegates, and the following year also to the Governorship. But, after only 3 months, he became Madison's Secretary of State (1811-17). In 1814-15 he was concurrently Secretary of War.

Blessed by Madison and facing only slight Federalist opposition, in 1816 Monroe was elected to the White House. The next year, only 2 1/2 months after taking office, he toured the Middle Atlantic States and then New England, the old Federalist stronghold. A Boston newspaper suggested that the warm welcome he received augured a political `Era of Good Feelings' in the Nation. But, despite his appointment of a competent intersectional Cabinet, the `good feelings' soon evaporated.

A depression struck the country in 1819 and, in a sudden emergence of the slavery issue, sectional debates broke out in Congress when Missouri sought admission to the Union as a slave State. The struggle captured headlines for 2 years and threatened to sunder the country. Disaster was averted by the Missouri Compromise (1820), which admitted Missouri as a slave State, Maine as a free State and outlawed slavery in the Louisiana Purchase area north and west of the southern boundary of Missouri. Other states admitted during Monroe's administration were Mississippi (1817) and Alabama (1819)

In diplomacy Monroe achieved successes. The Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817) with Britain brought arms limitations on the Great Lakes. In the Adams-Onis Treaty, the U.S. acquired Florida from Spain, and Spain recognized U.S. claims to the Northwest as far as the Pacific shores. In addition, agreement was reached with Britain to the joint occupancy of Oregon and to delineation of the northern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase.

Monroe's greatest diplomatic accomplishment, however, was the Monroe Doctrine. Responding to the nationalistic revolutions that were freeing Latin America from Spanish and Portuguese control and fearing the intervention of various European powers, the British suggested a joint Anglo-American declaration that both nations would resist any intrusions in the area. Although Jefferson and Madison advised Monroe to accede to the British proposal, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams urged that the U.S. assert its independence by making its own declaration.

Monroe agreed and in his annual message to Congress in 1823, based on a draft prepared by Adams, he warned Europe against future colonization in the Western Hemisphere. This `Monroe Doctrine' was forgotten for many years, then revived by President James K. Polk at the time of the Mexican War (1846-48). By the late 19th century, the doctrine had become one of the corner- stones of U.S. foreign policy.

The years following Monroe's retirement to Oak Hill, Va., which he had completed in 1823, were filled with activity. He managed his estate, became a regent of the University of Virginia, served as co-chairman of the State constitutional convention of 1829-30, acted as local magistrate, and even considered running again for Governor. But severe financial problems forced him to sell all his property, including his home, and in 1830 his wife died. He moved to New York City to live with one of his daughters. He died there, aged 73,on July 4, 1831.

John Quincy Adams was born in 1767 at Braintree (later Quincy), Mass., the second child and eldest son of 2 remarkable parents. Precocious, he attended private schools, but absorbed Revolutionary ideas, as well as a lifelong distrust of the British, from his father. The youth spent the period 1778-85 in Europe, where his diplomat father was assigned. The experiences of John Quincy there were broad and cosmopolitan, and he quickly achieved exceptional maturity for his age. He was formally educated in Paris, Leyden, and Amsterdam, but probably learned even more from his elders.

Mingling in diplomatic circles and holding discussions with Franklin, Jay, and Jefferson, young Adams acquired an interest in a wide range of subjects and became an accomplished linguist as well as an avid diarist. In 1781, when he was a mere 14-year-old, he became secretary to the first U.S. diplomatic agent to Russia. Back in Paris, he witnessed the signing of the Treaty of 1783.

When his father was assigned to London in 1785, John Quincy returned to the U.S. and matriculated at Harvard. Graduating in 2 years, he read law at Newburyport, Mass., won admittance to the bar in 1790, and set up practice in Boston. During the next 4 years, he also wrote on political topics, mainly in defense of Washington's administration, in which his father served as Vice President.

Washington then appointed J.Q. Adams as Minister to Holland (1794-96). From 1797 to 1801, under his father, he served as Minister to Prussia. In the former year, he married Louisa C. Johnson, daughter of a U.S. consular official whom he had met earlier while in London on diplomatic business. They were to have 3 sons, including Charles Francis, and one daughter.

Returning to Boston in 1801, John Quincy resumed his law practice. The following year, failing to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives, he entered the State Senate, soon followed by service in the U.S. Senate (1803-8). His independent actions, however, cost him the support of the Federalist Party and in 1808 he resigned from it and the Senate. Although he was later to become affiliated with the Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and Whig Parties, he was to exhibit individualist political tendencies for the rest of his life.

Adams moved back to Cambridge, where 2 years earlier he had accepted a position as professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard (1806-9). While Minister to Russia (1809-14), under Madison, in 1811 he turned down a Presidential offer to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1814 he and 4 other commissioners negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 with England. Subsequently, he served as Minister to Britain (1815-17).

Back in the U.S., in the period 1817-25, Adams made a notable mark as Monroe's Secretary of State. Among his other accomplishments, he was instrumental in the acquisition of Florida from Spain, arranged for joint Anglo-American occupancy of Oregon, gained Spanish recognition of U.S. claims to the Pacific Northwest, and helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine.

In 1824 Adams barely won election to the Presidency because of extreme factionalism in the one existing party, the Democratic-Republican. Three opposition candidates came to the fore from the South: William H. Crawford of Georgia, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, and Henry Clay of Kentucky. Although Jackson won a plurality of the electoral votes, none of the 4 candidates obtained the required majority. In the subsequent maneuvering in the House of Representatives, Clay, who had drawn the least number and disliked Jackson, threw his support to Adams. When the latter appointed Clay as Secretary of State, Jackson's followers charged that the 2 had made a `corrupt bargain.'

Despite his unsubstantial mandate, Adams advocated a bold program of domestic reform. To spur commerce, he urged the utilization of Federal funds to build a comprehensive system of roads and canals. The Erie Canal opened for traffic in 1825. Baltimore started the first passenger railroad. As means of stimulating manufacturing, he recommended a high protective tariff. He also stressed the need for Government encouragement of the arts and sciences, including establishment of a national university, erection of an observatory, and financing of scientific expeditions.

Because of the prevailing belief in a minimal governmental role in economic affairs, as well as opposition from constitutionalists and States righters, Adams's proposals failed to stir the public. The enactment (1828) of the `Tariff of Abominations' which favored New England manufacturers and hurt Southern farmers increased sectional disputes. Also his defense of Indian rights in Georgia, disdain of States Rights, and distaste for slavery offended many groups. Even his nonpartisan appointments yielded him little credit.

By the time Adams sought reelection in 1828, his followers had coalesced with those of Clay to form the National Republicans. They encountered the superbly organized campaign apparatus of Jackson, whose party retained the Democratic- Republican name. In a mud-slinging contest, Adams met a disastrous defeat. Aged 61, he returned to his beloved 'Peacefield,' Mass. That same year, his 28-year-old son, the eldest, George Washington Adams, died under tragic circumstances.

Nevertheless, Adams inaugurated a distinguished 17-year career in the House of Representatives (1831-48) - the only ex-President to serve in that body. He won the epithet `Old Man Eloquent.' Always an opponent of slavery, hopeful of eventual emancipation but not a rabid abolitionist, he fought against the extension of slavery into the western Territories and took other steps against that institution. He also protested the Mexican War (1846-48).

On the other hand, Adams continued to support the advancement of science. He sponsored establishment of the Smithsonian Institution (1846), continued to advocate a Federal astronomical observatory, and favored the standardization of weights and measures. Somehow, during these years he also worked on his father's papers, wrote 3 volumes of poetry and 2 biographies, and sat on the Harvard Board of Overseers.

During a debate in February 1848, the 80-year-old Adams suffered a stroke in the House Chamber and died 2 days later.

Jackson was born of poor, newly immigrated parents in 1767. His first home was a log cabin in the Waxhaw region, on the North-South Carolina border. His boyhood was turbulent and insecure. He never knew his father, who died in an accident about 2 weeks before his birth. Andrew's 2 older brothers, Robert and Hugh, as well as an uncle with whom he stayed for a while, furnished him with guidance, though he early demonstrated a strong temper and aggressive manner. He learned to read and write at a local school.

At the age of 13, during the War for Independence, Jackson enlisted in the militia and participated in some skirmishes. The next year, the British captured him and Robert, both of whom were wounded, but their mother won their release. On his return home, Robert died of smallpox and exposure; Hugh had been killed earlier.

The following year, Mrs. Jackson died while on her way to Charleston to nurse 2 cousins who were held in a British prison ship. Young Andrew at first compensated for his loneliness with rowdiness and wild living. After a stay in Charleston, he returned to his relatives in the Waxhaws, where he taught school for a short time and then attended an academy in Charlotte, N.C.

In 1784, despite his meager education, Jackson journeyed to Salisbury, N.C., to read law and stayed there for about 2 years. He then lived briefly in Morgantown and Martinsville, N.C., and was admitted to the bar in 1787. The next year, taking a position as a public prosecutor, he moved west to what was to become Tennessee, at first to Jonesboro and then Nashville; in 1790 he became attorney general of the Western District of North Carolina (present Tennessee).

Jackson married Rachel Donelson Robards in 1791; the ceremony had to be repeated several years later because of a legal technicality in her divorce from his first husband. This kept the tongues of Jackson's political enemies wagging throughout his career. Deeply devoted to each other, the couple forged a happy but childless marriage, though they adopted a son of Rachel's brother and renamed him Andrew Jackson, Jr.

Jackson thrived on the frontier. Yet, while active as public prosecutor, land-slave-horse speculator, judge advocate in the county militia, lawyer, landowner, store-keeper, and politician, he experienced many economic ups and downs. He also often brawled and fought several duels, in one of which he killed a man who had slurred Mrs. Jackson.

In 1796 Jackson attended the constitutional convention that organized the State of Tennessee. He served as the first U.S. Representative (1796-97), U.S. Senator (1797-98), and judge of the State superior court (1798-1804). During this time, in 1802, he was elected a major general in the Tennessee militia. Two years later, he purchased the Hermitage plantation, and between then and 1812 spent most of his time managing it and his other holdings.

During the War of 1812 (1812-14), Jackson led his militia to victory over the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Ala. (1814). This won him a major generalship in the Regular Army, as well as national fame. On January 8, 1815, after the treaty ending the war was signed, his hastily assembled and motley army defeated the British Regulars at the Battle of New Orleans (Chalmette). This further enhanced his prestige.

In 1817 Jackson commanded U.S. forces in the first Seminole War (1817-18), but, exceeding his instructions, he invaded Spanish West Florida. Following U.S. acquisition of Florida by treaty in 1821, he served a few months as its first Territorial Governor. In 1823 he was reelected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee.

Spurred by his military fame and strong frontier support, in 1824 Jackson ran for President along with three other Democratic- Republican candidates; none of them gained a majority. Although Jackson won the greatest number of popular and electoral votes, he lost to J.Q. Adams when the House settled the election early in 1825. That same year, the aggrieved Jackson resigned from the Senate to devote his full time to pursuit of the Presidency.

During the mud-slinging campaign of 1828, Adams' followers painted Jackson as an uncouth and dangerous savage whose election would bring the reign of the mob. On the other hand, Jackson's backers pictured him as a military hero, frontiersman, and champion of the average man; and Adams as a patrician easterner, who was a `corrupt bargainer.' Jackson won, carrying the South and West and obtaining key votes in Pennsylvania and New York.

Jackson's victory was the first in the modern sense because by 1828 all States except Delaware and South Carolina chose their electors by popular vote. On inaugural day, his supporters - frontiersmen, farmers, planters, laborers, artisans, mechanics, trades-people, and businessmen - took over the White House. But this event was tempered with sadness. His wife had died just after the election.

Jackson, who combined effectively the roles of chief of party, chief of state, and Chief Executive, substantially enhanced the power of the office. Asserting his authority and independence, he refused to yield to Congress or his department heads in policy making, wielded strong party leadership, and vigorously applied the veto. To assure a politically loyal bureaucracy, he took one more step toward establishment of a `spoils system.' He trusted his `kitchen cabinet,' a group of unofficial advisers, more than his official Cabinet.

The National Republicans, or Whigs, led by Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, charged that Jackson was a dictator, `King Andrew I.' But the majority of Americans disagreed in 1832, by which time his party had adopted the Democratic name, decisively reelected him. Attesting to his success was his triumphant tour of the Middle Atlantic and New England States the following year.

One of Jackson's greatest coups, involving a bitter inter-party fight, was the congressional upholding of his veto of the recharter of the Second Bank of the U.S. It was a private corporation but for all practical purposes a Government-sponsored monopoly that regulated the money supply. He doubted its constitutionality and felt it was responsive only to the vested interests who controlled it.

Jackson won his second major victory during the nullification controversy. Although he held slaves himself and understood the anger of South Carolinians over the high tariff, which protected northern manufacturing, he refused to permit them to carry out Vice President John C. Calhoun's plan under which a State might nullify an unpopular Federal law.

Proclaiming `Union' to be the most fundamental of national values, in 1832 Jackson met the challenge to Federal authority which included threats of secession, by mobilizing troops to enforce the tariff in South Carolina. Coupled with a congressional compromise that gradually reduced the tariff, Jackson's strong stand forced the nullifiers to back down.

In Indian affairs, reflecting his and other frontiersmen's dislike of natives, Jackson defied the Supreme Court and relocated the Five Civilized Nations from the Southeast to the West. To force the rebellious Seminoles to comply, he launched the second Seminole War (1835-42).

Jackson was also active in foreign affairs. He sought to purchase Texas and California from Mexico, but met with rebuff. When Texans revolted against the Mexican Government (losing in the Alamo but winning in the Battle of San Jacinto), Jackson kept the U.S. officially neutral, though he strongly sympathized with the Texan cause. As one of his last official acts, he appointed a Minister to the newly independent republic.

Jackson scored some diplomatic triumphs. He settled contested claims that the U.S. had long held against European states for property seized in the Napoleonic Wars; negotiated a reciprocal trade agreement with Great Britain to permit free trade with the British West Indies; and dispatched the first major American diplomatic mission to Asia, which resulted in treaties with Siam and Muscat.

Jackson helped his Vice President, Martin Van Buren, obtain the Presidential nomination and was the first President to campaign actively for his chosen successor. In 1837, almost 70 years of age, he retired to The Hermitage. He devoted considerable time to managing it and his other properties; experienced some financial woes, created principally by his spendthrift adopted son; advised Van Buren; continued to play a role in the Democratic Party; supported the annexation of Texas; and helped expansionist James K. Polk, rather than Van Buren, who had opposed the annexation, win the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1844.

Almost deaf and almost blind in one eye and suffering the effects from various illnesses and wounds that had plagued him over the years, Jackson died in 1845.

Van Buren began life at KinderKinderhook, Columbia County, New York in 1782, the first President born after the Declaration of Independence and the first under the U.S. flag. His father, who had fought in the War for Independence, won his livelihood as a tavern keeper and farmer. Young Van Buren attended village schools for several years. At the age of 14, he read law with a local attorney but soon moved to New York City to pursue his legal studies. He then returned to Kinderhook and was admitted to the bar in 1803. Four years later, he wed Hannah Hoes, who was to give birth to 4 sons before she died 12 years later; he never remarried.

Shortly after Van Buren's marriage, he moved to nearby Hudson, NY. Between then and 1820, in rapid political ascendancy, he held the offices of surrogate of Columbia County, State senator, and State attorney general; and organized the Albany Regency, a powerful political organization whose chief tool was patronage. In 1821, by which time he had become identified with the Democratic-Republican Party, he was elected to the U.S. Senate (1821-28), though he remained active in State politics. In the national arena, he backed William H. Crawford for President in 1824, and opposed the J.Q. Adams administration.

By 1827 Van Buren had become the most influential northern supporter of Andrew Jackson, and the following year engineered the successful merger of Jackson, Calhoun, and Crawford forces that carried Jackson into the Presidency. To aid Jackson further and retain his power in the State, that same year Van Buren, who became known as the `Little Magician' for his small stature and political prowess, resigned from the Senate and won the governorship of New York. Within 3 months, however, he resigned to take the position of Secretary of State (1829-31), where he served with distinction and became Jackson's most trusted adviser. His loyalty during a Cabinet imbroglio brought him appointment as Minister to Great Britain, but the President's enemies in Congress blocked the confirmation.

In 1832 Van Buren replaced Calhoun as Vice President on the Jacksonian ticket. Four years later, in an invective-filled campaign, he won the Presidency over several sectionally nominated Whig candidates. Only 3 months later, the Panic of 1837, precipitated in part by Jackson's polic-ies, particularly his stand on hard money initiated a 5-year-long nationwide depression that lasted long enough to insure Van Buren's defeat in 1840.

Based on his belief that business recklessness and over- extension of credit were the cause, Van Buren reduced Government spending, particularly aid for internal improvements, and employed other deflationary tactics. None succeeded. As part of his economic policy, like Jackson he opposed creation of a new bank of the U.S. on the pattern of the old one, but he disliked Jackson's practice of assigning Government funds to State banks. The remedy he proposed was an independent Government treasury system, which Congress refused to authorize until 1840.

Van Buren had been elected on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery but allowed it to continue where it already existed. He tried to still southern secessionist rumblings and blocked the annexation of Texas because it would add to slave territory and carried a threat of war with Mexico. This cost him his popularity in the West and South, as well as Jackson's support.

Although disaster befell his domestic policies, Van Buren was successful in foreign affairs. When passions rose on both sides of the Canadian border over the aid of the American citizens to Canadian revolutionaries and over the exact location of the Maine-Canadian border, he acted with restraint to avoid bloodshed and initiated a diplomatic interchange that was later resolved in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842).

Whig William Henry Harrison battered Van Buren in the election of 1840. Many conservative Democrats defected, and Van Buren failed to win even his home State. Leaving office, he took up residence at Lindenwald, an estate in Kinderhook. He continued to figure prominently in National and State politics, though he rejected President John Tyler's offer of a seat on the Supreme Court.

In 1844 Van Buren failed in a bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination, mainly because of his continued opposition to the annexation of Texas. The next year, he spurned Polk's offer of the post of Minister to Great Britain. During the period 1846-48, he led the antislavery wing of the Democratic Party, which was aligned against the expansionist policies of James K. Polk.

In 1848 Van Buren again ran for President as the Free Soil, or antislavery, candidate, but did not receive any electoral votes. Although he supported the Compromise of 1850, he became increasingly disenchanted with the pro-southern positions of Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Near the end of his life, Van Buren endorsed Lincoln's efforts to limit slavery and preserve the Union.

A highlight of Van Buren's twilight years was an extensive tour of western Europe in the years 1853-55. During this time, while staying at the Villa Falangola in Sorrento, Italy, he began work on his autobiography and political history. But his stay was ended prematurely by the need to accompany home the body of one of his sons who had died in Paris. Van Buren died in 1862 at the age of 79.

Harrison, the youngest of 7 children, was the son of planter Benjamin Harrison, who signed the Declaration of Independence and served as Governor of Virginia. The youth was born in 1773 at Berkeley Plantation. He received his elementary education at home and attended Hampden-Sydney College, probably some time during the years 1787-90, but apparently did not graduate. In the latter year, he matriculated at an academy in Southampton, Va., and later in the year began to study medicine in Richmond and then in Philadelphia, but he never qualified as a doctor.

In 1791, after his father's death, Harrison turned to a military career. Accepting a commission as an ensign in the Army, he was assigned to the Northwest Territory and based at Fort Washington, in the Cincinnati area. As an aide to Gen. `Mad Anthony' Wayne, in 1794 he fought against the Indians in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Ohio. The next year, he married Anna Symmes, daughter of a prominent land speculator-colonizer, from whom the couple apparently purchased a log cabin and a large tract of land in North Bend, Ohio, near Cincinnati.

After 3 more years of military service, Harrison resigned from the Army and served briefly as Secretary of the Northwest Territory. As its first Delegate to Congress (1799-1800), he was instrumental in obtaining legislation separating Indiana Territory from the Northwest Territory. In the latter year, President John Adams appointed him as Governor of Indiana Territory (1801-12). During this time, he lived in Vincennes and resided mainly in Grouseland, which he built in 1803-4. Although theoretically he was charged with protecting the rights of the Indians, his actual primary assignment was to appropriate their lands to expedite white settlement. His success generated strong Indian resistance.

In 1811, to suppress a confederation led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his half-brother The Prophet, Harrison took advantage of the former's journey to the South in search of allies and attacked Prophet's Town, an Indian stronghold near Tippecanoe Creek. After a brief but bloody battle, Harrison's forces burned the town and scattered the inhabitants. Although the battle was celebrated as a great victory and was to make Harrison a national hero, it was actually indecisive and military losses were far heavier than those of the natives. The Indians were driven into the hands of the British, and resistance remained intense.

After the outbreak of the War of 1812, Harrison obtained another opportunity to quash the Indians. Quickly winning the rank of brigadier general in the Regular Army, he was chosen to command U.S. forces in the old Northwest. After training his inexperienced troops and participating in various engagements, he recaptured Detroit from the British and in October 1813, by which time he had become a major general, defeated them and their Indian allies in the Battle of the Thames, in Canada, during which Tecumseh was killed. Indian resistance in the Northwest disintegrated, and the British were afterward unable to mount offensive action there.

In 1814, after a disagreement with the Secretary of War, Harrison resigned his commission and moved back to North Bend. He mingled farming and some unsuccessful commercial ventures with political activity. His offices included U.S. Representative (1816-19), State senator (1819-21), U.S. Senator (1825-28), and Minister to Colombia (1828-29). For the next 7 years, to support his family, he held minor local governmental posts in North Bend and ran his farm, which grew into a thriving estate.

In 1836 Harrison was one of the regional Whig candidates who unsuccessful challenged Van Buren for the Presidency. In the wake of the subsequent economic depression, the Whigs, sensing victory over Van Buren, decided to nominate a military hero for the 1840 race and rallied behind Harrison, hero of Tippecanoe, under the slogan `Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.' In a circus-like and acrimonious campaign, the Whigs painted the aristocratic Harrison as a logcabin-dwelling, hard-cider-drinking frontiersman who was a major military hero; Van Buren was labeled as a champagne-sipping dandy and plutocrat. Coonskin caps, miniature log cabins, and plenty of hard cider appeared at Whig rallies.

Harrison's solid victory brought joy to his party, especially to leaders Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, who anticipated they would dominate the administration. Webster accepted the office of Secretary of State, and Clay planned to supervise enactment of his long-advocated `American System' from the Senate. Harrison immediately summoned a special session of Congress to deal with the Nation's economic problems.

But, within a month after taking office, Harrison was dead, at the age of 68, the victim of exhaustion and pneu-monia, likely contracted during exertions associated with the inaugural. Mrs. Harrison, who had not yet arrived in Washington because of illness, survived him by more than 22 years. She had given birth to 6 sons and 4 daughters. Their father was buried in North Bend.

Tyler was born at Greenway Estate, Charles City, Virginia in 1790, the second son and sixth child of eight. Like his immediate predecessor, Harrison, Tyler was the descendant of a distinguished planter family and came from the same county. His mother died when he was only 7 years old. After attending a local private school, he studied at a grammar school associated with the College of William and Mary and then at the college itself, from which he graduated in 1807. He read law with his father, soon to be elected Governor, and then with Edmund J. Randolph in Richmond.

In 1809 Tyler was admitted to the bar and began practice in his home county. Two years later, he entered the Virginia House of Delegates (1811-16) and later the Council of State (1816). During the War of 1812, he served as a militia captain in the Williamsburg-Richmond area, but never saw action. In 1813 he married Letitia Christian; she was to bear 8 children, three sons and 5 daughters, before her death at the White House in 1842. By a second wife, Julia Gardiner, whom he wed 2 years later, while still President, Tyler had 5 sons and 2 daughters.

In the U.S. House of Representatives (1816-21), a staunch Democratic-Republican, Tyler took proslavery, strict constructionist, and States Rights positions. Following another tour in the Virginia House of Delegates (1823-25) he served as Governor (1825-27), and then sat in the U.S. Senate (1827-36), during which time he took part in the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829-30. As a Senator, he backed Jackson for President in 1828 as the lesser of 2 evils, though he personally disliked him and, like many other Tidewater planters, opposed many of his policies.

By 1836 Tyler's rupture with the Democrats was complete. He resigned his Senate seat and became a nominal Whig, thought he disagreed with the ultra-nationalistic and antislavery positions of many party leaders. That year, as a southerner with a Democratic background to broaden the appeal of the ticket, he was selected as one of the Whig regional Vice-Presidential candidates. He was not elected but achieved that honor 4 years later, after a final period of service in the Virginia House of Delegates (1836-1840).

Following the death of President Harrison, the Whigs had to reckon with `Tyler, too,' the youngest President (51 years old) inaugurated until that time. When he insisted on the role of a duly-elected President rather than that of acting Chief Executive, the Whigs, most of whom represented a northern and western point of view and were led by Henry Clay, still hoped he would adopt their programs.

But many Whig ideas offended Tyler's principles. He opposed a national bank, a high tariff, and federally financed public improvements. The result was a controversial administration. After his second veto of a national bank bill, all his Cabinet members except Secretary of State Daniel Webster resigned. Tyler replaced them with conservatives and kept himself at odds with the congression-al majority, repeatedly vetoing legislation it favored. The Whigs expelled him from the party, even considered impeaching him, the first time such an action was contemplated against a President, and pushed through a House resolution censuring him. Congress even refused to provide funds for the upkeep of the White House and, on the last day of his administration, for the first time in history, overrode a Presidential veto.

Despite these difficulties, Tyler accomplished much in foreign and domestic affairs. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842) ended years of dispute over a section of the Canadian border and provided for joint United States-British naval patrols of Africa to suppress the slave trade. The Navy was reorganized, and the forerunners of the Naval Observatory and the Weather Bureau were established. The Second Seminole War came to an end. Far East trade increased because of a commercial treaty with China, the first the United States negotiated with that country. A congressional act, supported by Tyler, gave western settlers first claim to plots of land before they went on public sale and later the opportunity to buy them.

Tyler's last and perhaps most significant act as President paved the way for annexation of Texas. Most of the Whigs in Congress felt it would strengthen slavery. Aware of their sentiments but fearful that foreign intrigue might permanently alienate Texas and her rich cotton lands from the U.S., Tyler opened negotiations with Texas. In 1844 officials signed a treaty agreeing to annexation if the U.S. Government would assume a substantial part of the Texas public debt. Northern anti-slavery forces in the Senate commanded enough votes to reject the treaty.

Tyler was undaunted. In 1844, virtually a man without a party, he accepted the Presidential nomination offered by a group of his followers, but threw his support to James K. Polk before the election. Taking Polk's victory as a mandate but realizing he could never obtain the necessary 2/3 majority for the annexation treaty in the Senate, Tyler used the remainder of his term to push it through Congress by means of a joint resolution of both Houses, which required only a simple majority vote. Just a few days before he left office, Congress approved the measure offering Texas the opportunity to join the Union.

Tyler retired to Sherwood Forest, an estate near his birthplace he had bought in 1842. Although a supporter of slavery, during the ensuing years of national tumult he long remained relatively inactive except for managing his plantation. In 1860, however, alarmed at the growing national schism and hoping to avert a civil war, he appealed for moderation. He urged the secessionists to exercise caution, and Chaired the ill-fated Washington Peace Convention (February 1861), which vainly sought a sectional compromise on the extension of slavery. He then served in the Virginia Secession convention and won election to the Confederate Congress. In January 1862, while awaiting the convening of the latter body, in Richmond, Va., he was suddenly stricken ill and died there a few days later.

Polk, the eldest of 10 children, was born at a log farmhouse near the city of Charlotte, N.C., in 1795. When he was 11 years old, his family moved to the vicinity of Columbia, Tenn., where the father prospered in farming. Sickly during most of his childhood, the youth, though studious by nature, received little formal education.

In 1818 Polk graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina. He briefly returned to his home near Columbia and then read law in Nashville for a year; in 1820 he was admitted to the bar and began practicing in Columbia. Before long, he became prominent in the profession, and was elected to the lower house of the State legislature (1823-25). In 1824 he married Sarah Childress; they had no children. During this period, he initiated a lifetime political alliance and friendship with Gen. Andrew Jackson, a friend of his father.

During Polk's years in the U.S.House of Representatives (1825-39), including the Speakership (1835-39), he came to lead Jackson's followers. During the years 1839-41, he served as Governor of Tennessee, but was afterward twice defeated for reelection. In 1840 he acquired Polk Place, in Nashville, his principal residence for the rest of his life.

In the Presidential election of 1844, Van Buren was the likely Democratic candidate, but his opposition to the annexation of Texas prevented him from mustering sufficient southern votes to win the nomination. A deadlock ensued and, Polk, a `dark horse' who had been mentioned as a Vice-Presidential possibility, was named.

Polk campaigned against Whig Henry Clay on a platform favoring the annexation of Texas, the acquisition of California and the `reoccupation' of Oregon (`54-40 or Fight'). Alluding to Polk's relative obscurity, the Whigs asked: `Who is James K. Polk?' But expansionist sentiment in the country was strong enough to bring him victory, though the election was extremely close and he did not even win his home state.

At 49 years of age, Polk was the youngest Chief Executive to serve until his time. Stating in advance that he would not seek reelection, he followed a strenuous schedule designed to carry out his program in a single term. One of his immediate problems was the possibility of war with Mexico. She severed diplomatic relations over the U.S. offer of annexation to Texas, which Polk nevertheless completed later in the year.

Hoping to settle matters peaceably but also determined to acquire California, Polk dispatched diplomat John Slidell to Mexico City with orders to obtain acceptance of the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary and to offer to purchase all or part of the present Southwest, including California. Mexican nationalists were outraged, and Slidell was not received. Meantime, Polk had deployed an army under Gen. Zachary Taylor to the disputed area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande in Texas. In April 1846 Mexican troops killed part of a patrol and captured the rest of it.

Polk, asserting that U.S. blood had been shed on U.S. soil, won a congressional declaration of war despite fervent opposition from antislavery northerners. In the months that followed, the Army won spectacular victories, which culminated in the capture of Mexico City in September 1847. The year before, California had fallen in the Bear Flag Revolt, accomplished by rebellious American settlers and helped by naval and overland military forces. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico surrendered the bulk of the present U.S. Southwest and recognized the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas; the U.S. paid $15 million to Mexico and assumed the claims of American citizens against the Mexican Government.

In the Northwest, Polk did not resort to war, which neither the U.S. involved in the Mexican War, nor Britain wanted. But he settled the problem of Oregon, which the two nations had jointly occupied since 1818. In 1846, well aware of the large British investment in northern Oregon, Polk agreed to a northern U.S. boundary line at the 49th parallel (except for the southern tip of Vancouver Island) instead of 54-40. This dismayed northern expansionists, who resented his compromise on this issue in contrast to his apparent tenaciousness on behalf of southern slave-holders in the Southwest.

Thus, in a brief period, Polk completed the acquisition of the territory embracing the bulk of the present contiguous 48 states; but this spectacular success had its negative side. His actions helped divide the Democratic Party into anti- and pro- slavery wings; and the need to organize the new Territories precipitated quarrels in both parties over the extension of slavery. Furthermore, the military victories in the Mexican War strengthened the Whigs, for heroes Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott were rapidly becoming their leading prospects as Presidential candidates.

Polk's domestic accomplishments were dwarfed by the magnitude of his territorial achievements. The Walker Tariff of 1846 helped to improve Anglo-American relations which had been strained by the Oregon dispute. An indepen-ant Treasury system was reorganized by the establishment of branches in big cities, and the U.S. Naval Academy and Smithsonian Institution were established. Gold was discovered in California in 1848 which led to a massive movement of people to the West.

As Polk had promised, he quit the Presidency in 1849 after a single term. Hard work had taken its toll. Less than 3 months after he left office, he died at his home in Nashville.

Taylor, the third son in a large family, was born into the Virginia planter class at Orange Country in 1784. His parents soon moved to the outskirts of Louisville, Ky., where in a few years they built Springfield as their residence. Tutors provided Taylor with an elementary education. In his late teens, he joined the Kentucky militia, and in 1808 entered the Regular Army and served as an infantry lieutenant at New Orleans. Two years later, on leave home, he married Margaret Mackall Smith. Two of their five daughters were to die as children and one was to wed Jefferson Davis; their only son, Richard, was to become a Confederate general. A few months after his marriage, Zachary won a captaincy.

Next based at Fort Knox and Harrison, in Indiana Territory, Taylor took part in W. H. Harrison's campaign against the Indians and moved up to brevet major. During the War of 1812, he served mainly in the same area, though he spent a few months in present Iowa and Illinois, and became a major. In 1815, irked by a peacetime reduction in rank to captain, he resigned from the Army, but the next year he was reappointed as a major.

Long years of garrison duty followed. For some time he was stationed principally in the Mississippi Valley at posts scattered from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. He saw action in the Black Hawk War (1832), and advanced to a colonel. His next major assignment was to Florida, in the years 1837-40 where his role in the Second Seminole War gained him a brevet Brigadier Generalcy. From 1840 to 1844, while headquartered at Baton Rouge, La., near which he purchased property, he served for a time at Fort Smith, Ark., and Fort Gibson, Okla.; established Fort Washita, Okla.; and then assumed command of Fort Jesup, La.

In 1845 while Taylor was commanding the first Department of the Army at the latter fort, President Polk ordered him to prepare to defend Texas against a possible Mexican invasion, and he concentrated an army at Corpus Christi. The following January, Polk directed him to advance into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, which was disputed with Mexico.

Following the outbreak of hostilities there in the spring, before the U.S. declared war against Mexico, `Old Rough and Ready' won quick victories and the rank of Brevet Major General in battles at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. He subsequently crossed the Rio Grande and scored another success at Monterrey, shortly before which he became a major general in the Regular establishment.

But President Polk, dissatisfied with his independent manner of command and aware of his growing popularity with the public and his potential as a Presidential candidate for the Whigs, ordered him to remain in northern Mexico and sent Gen. Winfield Scott to capture Mexico City. Meantime, Taylor had triumphed again, at Buena Vista in early 1874, though Polk had already stripped him of most of his Regulars. Near the end of that year, his request to be relieved was granted. He returned home to a hero's welcome and the Presidency.

Although many Whigs had opposed the war, Taylor was attractive for a variety of reason. His military record made him a certain vote getter in all parts of the country. As a southerner who owned a slave-operated plantation, he would strengthen the ticket of a party that was strongest in the North. Finally, essentially apolitical, he had not taken firm stands on any of the troublesome issues of the day.

The Whigs, however, had to expend considerable energy to enlist Taylor as their standard bearer. He disliked politics, had never even voted in a Presidential election, and was aware of his inexperience in statecraft. Even when a Whig faction induced him to make the race, only a couple of months before the 1848 convention, he asserted that he would be a national rather than a partisan President and that principle would prevail over party and politics.

The prime election issue, an explosive one, was the extension of slavery into the southwest, newly acquired from Mexico. The Whigs avoided this issue and touted Taylor's military record. The Democratic Party, represented by Lewis Cass, straddled the fence by advocating popular sovereignty, or letting the residents of new areas decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery. Many antislavery Democrats and some dissident Whigs defected to the Free Soil Party. Its candidate, ex-President Martin Van Buren, took a strong stand against the expansion of Slavery. In the close election, aided by the divisive influence of the Free Soilers, the Whigs triumphed.

Taylor's most urgent problem was the status of California and New Mexico. The rush generated by the discovery of gold in California in 1848 had created conditions that the new U.S. military government was unable to control. New Mexico and Texan contention over a strip of land between the Pecos River and Rio Grande threatened to erupt into a full-blown war. Inhibited by the inflammatory slavery issue, Polk had been unable to push Territorial bills for California and New Mexico through Congress, so Taylor inherited the task.

To the surprise of many people, Taylor soon demonstrated the political independence he had stressed in his campaign. Despite his southern background, his long military experience had made him an ardent nationalist. He rejected a congressional compromise on the slavery extension issue espoused by Whig leaders and attempted to end the legislative dispute once and for all. To avoid the crisis lengthy debates over the status of slavery in Federal Territories would create, he sought to bring California and New Mexico into the Union as States as soon as possible. In an echo of the Democratic platform, he sent word to residents of the 2 areas that they should decide the slavery issue for themselves. They should then bypass the Territorial stage, and draw up `republican' constitutions for admittance as States.

Congress, which felt it should make such a decision, was offended, as were also most southerners and Democratic leaders, who knew the 2 areas would prepare constitutions banning slavery. Some leading northern Whigs wanted to compromise, and the southern proslavery Whigs were incensed. Nevertheless, Taylor stuck to his position. He reacted to threats of secession by vowing to use military force if necessary to preserve the Union. Furthermore, he let it be known that, though he did not favor the Wilmot Proviso, which would exclude slavery from the entire territory acquired from Mexico, he would sign it if Congress passed it. He managed to irritate southern opinion further by opposing an expedition being organized to conquer Cuba. Even moderate southern Whigs began to desert him.

The Clay Compromise of 1850 was passed which provided for the admission of California as a free state; if formed the territories of New Mexico and Utah with an option on slavery at the time of admission as states, an abolition of slave trade in the District of Columbia; and a drastic fugitive slave bill.

Early in 1850 Taylor, averting the possibility of armed conflict with Great Britain, negotiated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. This instrument attempted to resolve American and British disagreements in Central America and to neutralize the region pending the construction of a transoceanic canal.

Taylor was stricken ill suddenly on Independence Day 1850 at the White House, shortly after attending a ceremony at the Washington Monument, and died a few days later at the age of 65 of cholera. Congress soon compromised on the slavery issue. But, as he had foreseen, a confrontation between the forces of union and disunion was inevitable.

Fillmore was born in 1800 at Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region on the New York frontier, shortly after his parents had moved there from Vermont. His beginnings were humble. The first son and second child in a family of 9, he enjoyed few advantages in his youth. He received only limited primary education at local schools, and worked on his father's farm. In his mid-teens, he served as an apprentice for a short time in the cloth trade and apparently worked in a store for a while.

When Fillmore was about 18 years of age, he became acquainted with a young teacher, Abigail Powers, who tutored him. He soon also started to read law with a county judge, and gained instruction in a rural school. His family moved west to the East Aurora area, near Buffalo, N.Y., about 1819, and Millard followed them probably 2 years later. He continued his legal study in Buffalo, and was admitted to the bar in 1823. Three years later, he married Abigail; they subsequently had a son and a daughter. The year they wed, the couple built a home in East Aurora. He, as well as his wife, taught there, and he practiced law.

Fillmore began his political career by helping to organize the Antimasonic Party, and as a protege of party boss Thurlow Weed entered the State legislature (1829-31). In 1830 he moved to Buffalo, his home for the rest of his life except while serving in Congress and as President. During the years 1833-35 and 1837-43, he sat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and eventually Chaired the powerful Ways and Means Committee. In 1834 he followed Weed into the Whig Party and became a leader of its antislavery wing. In 1843 he returned to Buffalo and practiced law.

In 1844 Fillmore unsuccessfully sought his party's nomination for Vice President and was narrowly defeated in a bid for the governorship of New York. In 1847, however, he won election as State comptroller. The next year, thanks largely to the backing of the Clay faction, he was elected as Vice President under Taylor. Although the latter kept him isolated from policy making and patronage, he judicious-ly Chaired the increasingly vociferous Senate debate over slavery.

But, when Taylor died in July 1850, Fillmore inherited responsibility for dealing with the conflict. Civil war seemed imminent, but the absence of Taylor's opposition to passage of Clay's Compromise of 1850, which had created a deadlock with a divided Congress, brought a new climate. Fillmore, who still personally disliked slavery but was determined to be President of the whole country, threw his power behind the compromise. He quickly replaced all Cabinet members, and joined forces with the moderate Whigs who favored the compromise. It was an omnibus of bills that sought a middle ground between northern abolitionist and southern secessionists to save the Union.

The congressional deadlock was broken when Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois took over management of the compromise from the aged, ill, and exhausted Clay. This bipartisan approach, coupled with Douglas' wise division of the compromise into a series of separate bills, eased its path.

Passed piecemeal in September 1850, the compromise admitted California as a free State; founded Utah and New Mexico Territories, whose residents were to choose whether or not slavery would prevail in their State constitutions; settled the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute; abolished the slave trade (but not slavery) in the District of Columbia; and created a strong Federal Fugitive Slave Law.

Although supporters of the compromise congratulated themselves that they had avoided civil strife, their work was fragile. The measure was a compromise on an issue that could not be compromised and did not settle the slavery controversy. Some provisions offended the North; others, the South. The conflict had not been solved; it would burst forth again with tragic results.

Congress and the Nation calmed, Fillmore turned his attention to other matters. He aided Senator Douglas' efforts to obtain Federal grants for railroad construction. Fillmore also exerted initiative in foreign relations. Trying to overcome the loss of good will in Latin America generated by the Mexican War, he restored diplomatic peace with Mexico; facilitated the negotiations whereby an American company undertook to dig a transoceanic canal through Nicaragua; and sought to deter adventurers who tried to overthrow the Spanish colonial government in Cuba.

In 1852 Fillmore dispatched Commodore Matthew C. Perry to Japan to establish trade and diplomatic relations, a mission he was to complete during the Pierce administration. Fillmore also refused to yield to entreaties of the King of Hawaii, threatened by French domination, for U.S. annexation. But, pledged to protect Hawaii's independence, Fillmore warned Napoleon III to abandon his imperialistic plans there.

Northern Whigs, angered by Fillmore's support of the Compromise of 1850, prevailed at the contentious convention of 1852 and blocked his renomination. The next year, his wife caught cold at Pierce's inauguration and died in Washington within weeks. The bereaved widower went back to Buffalo. His sorrow soon increased when his daughter died.

Despite the disintegration of the Whig Party, Fillmore refused to join the Republicans. Instead, in 1856, while on an extensive tour of Europe and the Mideast, he accepted the Presidential nomination of the American, or `Know Nothing,' Party. He campaigned more on the need for national unity than on the party's anti-Catholic and anti-foreign platform, but met overwhelming defeat. He never again sought public office, but later backed the Democratic Party.

In 1858 Fillmore remarried, to widow Caroline Carmichael McIntosh; she was to be childless. They honeymooned in Europe. Back in Buffalo, Fillmore continued to play a leading role in its philanthropic, civic, and cultural life. During the Civil War, he was loyal to the Union, but opposed many of Lincoln's policies and his reelection. After Lincoln's assassination, Fillmore supported Johnson's conciliatory stance toward the South. In 1866 Fillmore again visited Europe. Reaching the age of 74, he lived until 1874 and was buried in Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Born in 1804 at Hillsboro (Hillsborough), New Hampshire, Pierce was the first President to first see the light of life in the 19th century. His father was a farmer, tavern keeper, militia leader, and politician. Young Pierce, the fourth son from his father's second marriage, attended a local elementary school and then academies at nearby Hancock and Francestown. In 1824 he graduated from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. After a winter back home, he read law at Portsmouth, NH., Northampton, Mass., and Amherst, NH.

Winning admission to the bar and returning to Hillsboro in 1827, the same year his father attained the governorship, Pierce began to practice law. Two years later, at the age of 24, he was elected to the lower house of the State legislature (1829-33) and rose to the position of Speaker. Next came service in the U.S. House of Representatives (1833-37) and the Senate (1837-42), where when elected he was the youngest Member. In Congress he won a reputation as a solid Democrat.

In 1834 Pierce had married Jane Meanse Appleton of Amherst, NH.; they were to have 3 sons, none of whom reached adulthood. About the time of his marriage, he bought a home in Hillsboro, but in 1838 changed his residence to Concord, NH.

Pierce resigned from the Senate in 1842 for a variety of personal reasons. He went back to the practice of law, and later served as Federal District Attorney for New Hampshire (1845-46). Also taking an active part in State political affairs, he opposed the abolition movement because he felt it contributed to national divisiveness. In 1845 he turned down an offer by the Governor to fill out the unexpired portion of a U.S. Senator's term; and the next year rejected the position of U.S. Attorney General, proffered by Polk.

Upon the outbreak of the Mexican War (1846-48), Pierce enlisted in a New Hampshire regiment as a private, but his political prominence quickly won him the rank of brigadier general under Gen. Winfield Scott, under whom he served in Mexico. Back in Concord, in 1848 Pierce rejected the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and continued his legal and political pursuits. He labored on behalf of the of 1850, and served as president of the State constitutional convention (1850), where he opposed anti-Catholic proposals

In 1852 Pierce, then a youthful 48, won the Presidential nomination. After 49 ballots, the convention turned to him when it was unable to agree on one of 4 major candidates. His landslide victory over his former commander, the aging Whig Winfield Scott, is mainly attributable to his party's stronger stand on the Compromise of 1850, Scott's lack of popularity in the South, and defections from the Whig Party on both sides of the Slavery issue.

Tragedy marred the election triumph. Not long before assuming office, Pierce, his wife, and last surviving child, an 11-year-old son, were in a train wreck and the youngster perished before his parents' eyes. As a result, Pierce entered the Presidency in a state of grief and nervous exhaustion, and his spouse was unable to attend the inauguration.

Pierce appointed an intersectional Cabinet and tried to apportion patronage among the different factions in his party, but relied heavily on the advice of pro-southerners. His expansionism in foreign affairs further incensed northerners, who resented his attempts to extend slavery by means of territorial acquisition or diplomatic maneuver. They were particulary upset when he persuaded the British to reduce their involvement in Central America and recognized the apparently proslavery government set up in Nicaragua by an American soldier of fortune. By one means or another, Pierce sought to acquire Hawaii, Santo Domingo, and Alaska.

But by far Pierce's strongest quest was the purchase of Cuba from Spain. This not only failed but also seriously embarrassed him after a secret memorandum of discussion on the subject among U.S. diplomats in Europe, drafted by Minister to Britain James Buchanan, leaked out. Known as the Ostend Manifesto, it advocated the use of force if necessary to take over Cuba and stressed its importance as a base to revivify slavery. The administration renounced the document.

Pierce's foreign policies were not all failures. A treaty was made with Japan in 1854, opening that country to American trading interests.

Also unsettling to the North (though the apparent rational was to facilitate construction of a transcontinental railroad along a southern route) was Pierce's sponsorship of the Gadsden Purchase (1853), ceded by Mexico for $10 million. It consisted of the southern strips of present Arizona and New Mexico. Minister James Gadsden had sought but failed to acquire a far larger part of northern Mexico.

The event that spelled the doom of the temporary sectional truce, however, was the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced it, but the President vigorously championed it. This measure divided the relatively unsettled central portion of the Louisiana Purchase into Kansas and Nebraska Territories. One aim of the legislation may have been to aid construction of a transcontinental railroad, this one from Douglas' home State, Illinois, along a central route to the Pacific. Mindful of southern Democratic congressional sentiment, he added to the bill the provision that the settlers in the new Territories should decide for themselves, by the process of popular sovereignty, their position on slavery.

Pierce supported and signed the bill in the hope that, if Kansas were admitted as a slave and Nebraska as a free State, both sides would be mollified. But the act reopened the question of slavery in the West. A storm of protest ensued from the North because, by permitting slavery north of 36-30 North Latitude, the legislation virtually repealed the Missouri Compromise (1820). Pierce's assent to the bill was followed by dramatic antislavery gains in the Congress.

Meanwhile, pro- and anti-slavery settlers poured into Kansas hoping to influence the outcome. Sporadic guerrilla warfare, during which John Brown gained his first taste of fame, broke out between the 2 factions - a prelude to the Civil War. Many elections were also fraudulently conducted and violently disputed. Acrid debates occurred in Congress and in the Nation. In late 1856 Pierce created temporary peace by sending in Federal troops and appointing a new Governor.

The national political ramifications of the Kansas controversy were far reaching. Antislavery Democrats deserted in droves. A new and powerful northern sectional party, the Republican, opposed the extension of slavery into the western Territories. The Democratic convention scorned both Pierce and Douglas and nominated less controversial James Buchanan.

In the spring of 1857, Pierce returned to New Hampshire, but in November left on a leisurely tour of Europe that lasted until the summer of 1859. He also spent the first half of the next year in Nassau. But, back in Concord, he spent his last years in bitterness, still believing in the validity of his policies as President.

In 1861, disturbed by the imminence of war, Pierce sought but failed to arrange a meeting of the 5 living ex-Presidents (himself, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, and Buchanan) to try to stem the tide. He still fiercely resented the abolitionists and the rise of antislavery militancy in the North. During the war, his denunciation of the Emancipation Proclamation and outspoken criticism of what he felt were Lincoln's invasions of personal and property rights brought him angry censure, even in his own State and community. Because of this, the death of his wife in 1863 as well as that of his lifelong friend, author Nathaniel Hawthorne, the following year, and ill health, Pierce suffered severe depression. He succumbed at Concord in 1869 at the age of 64,and was buried there in the Old North Cemetery.

Buchanan, the first son and second child in a family of 10, was born in a log cabin just outside of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, at Cover Gap (Stony Batter) in 1791. His father was a storekeeper and farmer who in time was to gain modest wealth. In 1796 the family moved into town. After attending a local elementary school and an academy, young Buchanan attended Dickinson College, in Carlisle, PA., as a junior and graduated in 1809. He then read law at Lancaster, where he was to maintain his home for the rest of his life. In 1812 he was admitted to the bar and began a highly successful legal career. Volunteering in a dragoon unit during the War of 1812, he saw brief service as an enlisted man in 1814, including participation in the defense of Baltimore.

Late that same year, as a Federalist, Buchanan entered the lower house of the Pennsylvania legislature (1814-16), after which he resumed his law practice. He next won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (1821-31). Following the demise of the Federalist Party, he switched to the Democrats and in 1828 supported Andrew Jackson for President.

Buchanan's reward was appointment as Minister to Russia (1832-33). He then began a long tour in the U.S. Senate (1834-45), including duty as chairman of the Foreign Relat-ions Committee. During these years, he declined appointment as U.S.Attorney General and a seat on the Supreme Court. In 1844 he lost the Presidential nomination to James K. Polk, but then supported his candidacy. The latter designated him as Secretary of State (1845-49). He handled the difficult negotiations preceding and ending the Mexican War (1846-48), and settled the Oregon question with Britain in 1846.

Buchanan made 2 more unsuccessful bids for the Presidential nomination, in 1848 and 1852. He threw his weight behind the Compromise of 1850. He served as Minister to Great Britain (1853-56) under President Pierce. His close association with the proslavery Ostend Manifesto, concerning the acquisition of Cuba from Spain, brought him popularity in the South and scorn in the North. Nevertheless, his absence from the country during the turbulent controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and his reputation as a compromiser made him a more acceptable candidate in 1856 then either Pierce or Stephen A. Douglas.

Mainly because of this solid showing in the South, Buchanan won a substantial plurality over Republican John C. Fremont; and expresident Fillmore, the American (`Know Nothing') Party choice, ran a distant third. The regional strength of the Republicans in the North, however, coupled with the virtual disappearance of the Whigs, showed clearly the breakdown in the old party system - to be further demonstrated by the split of the Democrats during Buchanan's administration into northern and southern wings.

Despite all his legislative, diplomatic, and legal experience, Buchanan, a Unionist, proved unable to soothe sectional passions. He brought to the Presidency a long-held conviction that slavery might be morally wrong but that the Federal Government lacked the right to interfere with it. He opposed regionally based parties, resented northern and abolitionist agitation on slavery, and felt the North and South should be tolerant of each other. Hoping to achieve compromise, he appointed a Cabinet representing all parts of the country.

Buchanan felt that a Supreme Court ruling on what he believed was an abstract question of the rights of slave holders in the West would end the bitter sectional strife. Only 2 days after he took office, the Court handed down the Dred Scott decision, which he favored and may have earlier influenced. It gave slave holders the right to take their human property wherever they chose, outlawed the Missouri Compromise, and implied that Congress lacked the power to make decisions concerning slavery in the Territories. In other words, they were all open to slavery and could exclude it only when they attained statehood. The Court's dictum obviously pleased the South and inflamed many elements of opinion in the North.

Turning to the still touchy issue of the status of Kansas Territory, in 1858 Buchanan, yielding to southern pressures, urged Congress to accept the proslavery Lecompton constitution and admit Kansas as a slave State - though the proslavery men in the Territory were heavily outnumbered. Buchanan hoped the admission of Kansas with or without slavery would remove the issue from public attention and calm Congress. But this proposal angered the Republicans and offended many of his own party; Congress rejected it. As a result, the South was enraged, and Kansas did not become a State until 1861. Until then, it remained a bloody symbol of the factionalism that was destroying the Nation.

By 1858 Buchanan's administration was near paralysis. The Republicans and anti-Lecompton Democrats scored heavily in the congressional elections and won a majority in the House; the Democratic Party divided into northern and southern elements. Southern votes in the Senate and Presidential vetoes doomed practically all House legislat-ion. Government approached stalemate. Slow recovery from the financial Panic of 1857 produced gloom in the North. And in 1859 John Brown's antislavery raid on the Federal ordnance installation at Harpers Ferry, Va., reinflamed national emotions.

The Presidential election of 1860 brought the crisis to a head. Buchanan's refusal to be considered for renomination helped to split his party. Four candidates - one each from the northern (Stephen A. Douglas) and southern (John C. Breckinridge) wings of the Democratic Party, John Bell from the Constitutional Union Party, and Lincoln from the Republican Party - entered the campaign. Lincoln was elected, though with far less than a popular majority. Rejecting the prospect of a Republican administration, the Southern States, starting with South Carolina in December of 1860, began to secede and seize Federal installations within their borders. Buchanan, who thought secession violated the Constitution but felt the Government could not legally prevent it, watched in anguish.

During Buchanan's remaining months in office, he at first made repeated but unfruitful efforts to compromise with the secessionists. He urged Congress to exercise its constitutional prerogatives and address the issue. He also backed proposals for a national convention and constitution-al amendment. But other states left the Union in early 1861: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The Confederate States of American was organized February 4, 1861.

Early in 1861, however, `lame-duck' Buchanan finally took stronger measures against the secessionists. Promising to uphold Federal authority, he sent reinforcements and supplies in the unarmed merchant ship STAR OF THE WEST to the beleaguered garrison at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, SC. When South Carolina batteries drove the ship away, he refused to evacuate the fort, though he made no further efforts to resupply it. The outbreak of war was thus temporarily averted.

Another thorny problem for Buchanan besides slavery was the Mormon-dominated Territory of Utah. Congress had ignored its requests for statehood, and the Mormons opposed Federal officials, who were unsympathetic toward them. Buchanan replaced Brigham Young as Governor and dispatched a 2,500-man army to maintain law and order. The Mormons interpreted this as an invasion, and the short-lived and bloodless Mormon war (1857-58) broke out. Buchanan, by sending a special representative, finally calmed the situation.

Despite his preoccupation with the domestic slavery crisis, Buchanan also expended much effort on diplomacy. He clarified with Great Britain interpretation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), which called for nonintervention in Central America by either country. Although frowning on filibustering, he also expanded U.S. influence in Central and South American and discouraged intervention by European powers who were enticed by recurring political instability there. Like his predecessors Polk and Pierce, he continued southern-spawned efforts to purchase Cuba from Spain. In 1860 he received the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the U.S.

Other events which took place during his administration were the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858), the Atlantic cable completed (1858), the first oil rig erected in Pennsylvania (1859), and the Pony Express service began operating between St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento, California (1860).

After a public career that spanned the era from the War of 1812 to the Civil War (from the demise of the Federalists to the ascendancy of the Republicans) Buchanan lived out the remaining years of his life at his Wheatland, PA., estate. He retained his interest in politics and supported the Union during the Civil War, but its tragedy affected him deeply. He also did some writing and aided charitable causes. His death occurred in 1868 at the age of 77.

Born near present Hodgenville, Kentucky., in 1809, Lincoln was the first President whose birthplace was west of the Appalachians. His parents, with a daughter named Sarah, had both come to Kentucky from Virginia as children. The father was a humble but ambitious farmer-carpenter. In 1816, when Abraham was 7 years old, after relocation to another nearby farm and a series of land-title disputes, the family moved to Indiana and settled near present Gentry-ville. Two years later, Mrs. Lincoln succumbed during an epidemic. The next year, her erstwhile husband traveled back to Elizabethtown, KY, where he married a widow with 3 children, and returned to Indiana. Abraham's stepmother treated him and Sarah kindly.

Lincoln's 14 years in Indiana were formative ones. Determined to avoid the hardships of frontier life in the future, he read as many books as he could find time for after he had finished the farm chores or his work as a handyman. Altogether he managed to obtain less than a year of formal education. Occasionally he visited neighboring counties on family business, and in 1828-29 worked on a flatboat that journeyed down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. About that same time, he became interested in law, probably began its study, and attended court sessions.

In 1830, some 2 years after Lincoln's sister Sarah died in childbirth, the family moved to Macon County, Illinois. The next year, the 22-year-old Lincoln left home. He made another flat- boat trip to New Orleans, and later in the year took positions as a clerk in a general store and mill-hand at New Salem, IL. He continued to read voraciously and study law. In 1832 he served briefly in the State militia. Although he experienced no combat, as a private and for a short period as a captain, he campaigned in northern Illin-ois and southern Wisconsin during the Black Hawk War.

That same year, back in New Salem, Lincoln, an admirer of Henry Clay, unsuccessfully ran as a Whig for a seat in the lower house of the State legislature. Before the year was out, he and a friend formed a partnership and operated a store for a short time, while he continued to study law. The business foundered, but he eventually paid the debts. In 1833-36 he served as postmaster of New Salem; and in 1834-36, based on nighttime study of the subject, performed surveying jobs in the region.

Lincoln won a seat in the legislature in 1834 and began the serious study of law. He served until 1841 and in time took over legislative leadership of his party. Meanwhile, in 1837, the year after he was admitted to the bar, he had changed his residence from New Salem to Springfield, to which the capital moved in 1839 from Vandalia.

His position on slavery, like that of his party, was ambivalent. Although he deemed it unjust, he contended that abolitionist agitation tended to increase its evils; and held that the Federal Government could not constitutionally interfere with slavery in any State but could abolish it in the District of Columbia, especially if the residents so requested.

While a legislator, Lincoln prospered as an attorney and circuit lawyer. In 1842, the year after he left the legislature and concentrated on his practice and politics, he married socially prominent Mary Todd of Lexington, KY. They were to have 4 sons, only one of whom, the eldest, Rob-ert Todd, reached maturity. In 1844 Lincoln purchased a residence in Springfield that he occupied, except during congressional service, until he become President in 1861.

Lincoln was elected in 1846 to the U.S. House of Repre-sentatives, where he was the only Whig among 7 Members from the heavily Democratic Illinois. His antagonism toward President Polk's expansionist policies and querulous attit-ude on the constitutionality of the Mexican War shocked many of his constituents. He consistently favored the exclusion of slavery from the territory ceded by Mexico, but opposed Federal interference with it where it already existed. He announced he would not seek reelection in 1848 and became an early booster of Whig Presidential candidate Zachary Taylor.

Lincoln left Congress in 1849. Disappointed when Tayl-or did not appoint him to the position he sought as commiss-ioner of the General Land Office, he rejected a proffered Federal post in Oregon Territory and resumed his legal act-ivities in Illinois. Touring his judicial circuit in the central part of the State and practicing before Federal and State courts, he became a leading lawyer. His reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which in effect opened up the Lou-isiana Purchase area to slavery, brought him back again into the legislature in 1854, but he soon resigned to seek elect-ion to the U.S. Senate. This effort failed.

In 1856 Lincoln joined the Republican Party, a coalit-ion of antislavery groups that had been organized 2 years earlier, and that year ranked second in its balloting for the Vice-Presidential nomination. While campaigning strenu-ously for Presidential candidate John C. Fremont, he en-hanced his reputation in his own state and became a national leader of his party. In 1857 he attacked Illinois Democrat-ic Senator Stephen A. Douglas for his defensive position on the Dred Scott decision, and criticized the institution of slavery.

In 1858, during his campaign for the Senate seat of in-cumbent Douglas, Lincoln gained nationwide recognition in a series of debates around the State. He denounced Douglas' doctrine of popular sovereignty as the answer to the extens-ion of slavery into the Territories, and emerged as a spoke-sman for moderate Republicans. Lincoln lost the election in the legislature, though by only a close margin.

Nevertheless, Lincoln had drawn countrywide attention that aided him in obtaining the 1860 Presidential nomination because many in his party were seeking a moderate who could carry the West. Further enhancing his position and bolster-ing his prestige vis-a-vis his main opponent, William H. Seward, was a headline-generating speech he delivered a few months before the convention at New York City's Cooper Uni-on. The subject was the attitude of the signers of the Con-stitution toward the extension of slavery. In his speech and subsequently in his Presidential campaign, he favored the exclusion of slavery from the Territories, but urged conciliation with the South, and rejecting either secession-ist or abolitionist extremism, denounced efforts to destroy the Union.

Lincoln won a clear majority of the electoral votes, all from the free States, but received a plurality of less than 40% of the popular vote over his 3 opponents: Northern Democrat Douglas, Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, and Constitutional Unionist John Bell.

The new President inherited a tense situation, which Buchanan had been unable to resolve. The Southern States, convinced that Lincoln would destroy them economically and politically, had begun seceding. The Federal garrison at Fort Sumter, SC was beleaguered, and the Confederates al-ready held many other Federal installations in the South. Yet in his inaugural address the President was conciliatory, though firm, toward the South. Maintaining that secession was illegal, he was determined to enforce national laws and protect Government property in the South. The War Between the States erupted on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter.

Blending Statesmanship and political wisdom, Lincoln provided dynamic leadership to the North and assumed unprec-edented Presidential power. To still critics of the war or the Government and sympathizers with the Confederacy, he sometimes resorted to extra-constitutional measures, such as the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, which he just-ified by the national emergency. Although the tragedy of the conflict weighed heavily on him, as it stretched out year after year and casualty lists mounted, he tried with his speeches and public statements to bolster public morale.

The Homestead Act (1862) which provided up to 160 acres of unoccupied public land to each applicant gave heart to many immigrants and native Americans. Until he found con-sistently effective generals such as Grant, he took an act-ive part in formulating overall military strategy and con-ducting individual campaigns.

Lincoln was unable to silence either the abolitionists, some of whom sought an all-out war on slavery as well as un-conditional surrender and occupation of the Confederacy, or the Copperheads and other defeatists, who demanded a negoti-ated peace. Nor was he able to correct inefficiencies in the War Department or obtain the full cooperation of certain Democratic Governors. Yet early in the war he deterred sev-eral of the Border States from joining the Confed-eracy. Throughout the conflict he adroitly controlled his Cabinet, made up of a contentious and personally ambitious but able group of men, 3 of whom had contested with him for the 1860 Presidential nomination. His issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the freedom of slaves in areas still in rebellion, won sympathy for the Union abroad and strengthened northern morale.

Lincoln's foreign policy, shaped by the requirements of the home front, was guided by his erstwhile opponent Seward, whom he had named Secretary of State. The administration succeeded in substantially isolating the Confederacy diplo-matically and in counteracting European opinion favorable to the South, especially in Great Britain and France. European intervention in Latin America, however, particularly that of the French in Mexico, could not be countered during the war.

For purposes of the election of 1864, the Republicans, in an appeal to Democrats and Unionists of all stripes, re-constituted themselves into the National Union Party. They renominated Lincoln and, as his Vice President, chose Andrew Johnson, a pro-Union Democrat from Tennessee. While milit-ary victories were signaling the end of hostilities, the vo-ters reelected Lincoln over a general he had relieved 2 years earlier, George B. McClellan.

In his second inaugural address, Lincoln addressed the problem that he expected to be central to his next term: re-conciliation of the North and South once the war was over. Guided by a philosophy of `malice toward none, with charity for all,' as expressed in that address, he outlined a moder-ate Reconstruction program for the South.

But Lincoln did not live long enough to put it into effect. On April 14, 1865, only 5 days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, a bullet (fired by John W. Booth) struck him down while he was enjoying a play at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, and he died the next morning.

As he lay hiding in the pine thicket along the Patomic River, seven days after asssasinating Lincoln, Booth began to think he acted in vain. "I am here in dispair," he wrote. "And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for-- what made Tell a hero. My action was purer than theirs[']....I have to great a soul to die like a criminal. O, may He spare me that, and let me die bravely!"

Booth, a strikingly handsome, succesfull actor and strong supporter of the Confederacy, had planned for months to abduct Lincoln to force the release of Southern prisoners. But after Lee surrendered April 9, 1865, Booth's plots were rendered useless. He spent the next few days glumly drinking much brandy at John Deery's billiard hall in Washington, D.C. When he shot the prsident on on April 14 the act was apparently unplanned until that day, when Booth heard that Lincoln was to see Our American Cousin at Ford's theater that night.

It was in the second scene of the third act, after 10 PM, that the 26-year-old Booth entered Lincoln's box and shot him in the back of the head. He stabbed an officer who tried to grab him, then leapt tto the stage 12 feet bellow, yelling, "Sic semper tyrannis! The south is avenged!" As he jumped, his boot spur got caught in the folds of an American flag draped along the president's box causing him to fall and break the leg as he hit the stage. Booth managed to limp quickly past the stunned actor back stage, where he stabbed the orchestra conductor, who tries to stop him, then struggled down the rear stairs to an awaiting horse that was being held by a stagehand.

As Booth fled the city-his fractured leg tearing deeper and deeper into his flesh- he was joined by 19-year-old David Herold, who as one of eight in Booth's gang had shot and wounded Secretary of State William Seward. Two men who were to kill Vice President Johnson backed out. Booth and Herold rode through the night southward into Maryland. They turned eight miles out of their way to arrive at the home of Doctor Samuel Mudd, who set Booth's leg at 4:30 AM. From there the two men rode on to the Potomac, where they hid along the banks for a week, surrounded by army troops but supplied food and newspapers by a confederate sympethizer.

The troops finally caught up with the two men in the early morning hours of April 26, after they had crossed the river and reached the home of Richard Garrett in Virginia. After hte soldiers surrounded the barn where the Booth and Herold were sleeping, one of Garret's sons was go in and convince them to surrender. Booth told the boy, "Damn you. You have betrayed me. Get out of here or I will shoot you."

Herold surrendered, but Booth stayed inside the barn, intent on a hero's final blaze of glory. He yelled, "Captain, this is a hard case, I swear. Give a lame man a chance. Draw up your men 20 yards from the door, and I will fight your whole command." When the troops refused, Booth called out, "Well, my brave boys, you can prepare a stretcher for me."

Soldiers set the barn afire. Booth was seen briefly against the light of the blaze, leaning on a crutch, before a shot was heard. Booth was pulled from the barn with a bullet in the side of his neck that had broken his spinal column. A soldier, saying' "Providence directed me," claimed that he had shot Booth through a crack in the barn, even though orders were to take the assassin alive. But some historians believe he shot himself. The actor spent his final hours lying on the porch of Garrett's house. Before he died at 7 AM he mumbled, "Tell mother, tell mother, I died for my country." And then, "Useless, useless."��

Although Booth's body was identified by several people before he was buried outside Washington, near the U.S. Arsenal legend had it that the army had gotten the wrong man and Booth remained alive.

The second of 2 sons, Johnson was born amid humble circumstances at Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808. His father, a janitor-porter-- laborer, died in an accident when Andrew was only 3 years old. The family was impoverished and remained so even after her remarriage in 1814. As a result, Johnson never attended school nor received any sort of formal education, though in adolescence he did learn to read.

In 1822 his mother apprenticed Andrew and his brother to a tailor. Two years later, when the former was 15 years old, they both ran away from their master, first to Carth-age, NC., and then to Laurens, SC., where they operated tailor shops. In 1826 they returned to Raleigh, but that same year the family moved westward to Greeneville, Tennessee.

At first unable to find employment there, Andrew spent a few months in Rutledge, Tenn., and possibly other cities working at his craft. Early the next year, he went back to Greeneville and opened his own shop. Later that same year, he married Eliza McCardle, who turored him in reading and taught him to write. In time, she was to bear 3 sons and 2 daughters.

Johnson achieved modest prosperity in business, took part in local debates, and became active in civic and political affairs. He held the positions of alderman (1828-30), mayor (1830-33), State legislator(1835-37 and 39-41), State senator (1841-43), U.S.Representative (1843-53), Governor of Tennessee (1853-57), and U.S.Senator (1857-62).

During all these years, though a Jacksonian Democrat, Johnson often pursued an independent course and was never a party loyalist. Always favoring the cause of the common man and opposing the plantation aristocracy in Congress, to no avail he persistently advocated enactment of a homestead bill to provide free land to the poor.

Because of Johnson's close southern ties, secession created a personal crisis for him. His home was in the South. He had been born and raised there. He owned 8 household slaves. And he accepted the existence of slavery, which he felt was a unique institution beyond the control of Congress. Yet, reflecting the strong Unionist sentiment in eastern Tennessee and believing secession to be unconstitu-tional, he chose to fight for preservation of the Union.

To prevent his State from seceding, right after Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, Johnson made a desperate trip back home from Washington to plead his case - despite threats to his life. En route, in Virginia, he almost was killed by a lynch mob. In the eastern part of his State, for he dared not appear in the pro-secessionist western part, he met favor from some groups and hostility from others. Faced with the wrath of his opponents and possible capture by Confederate troops following the outbreak of war, he finally headed back to Washington via Kentucky. After Tennessee seceded in June 1861, he was the only Senator from the South who stayed in his chair. This brought him instant applause in the North and scorn in the South.

In 1862, after Union forces captured Nashville and a portion of western Tennessee, Lincoln appointed Johnson as military governor of the State. Two years later, Johnson was nominated as Lincoln's running mate on the victorious ticket of the National Union Party, the wartime label used by the Republicans, who were seeking to win the allegiance of pro-war Democrats.

When Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, Johnson took over a task virtually as onerous as conduct of the war: Reconstruction of the South, or the restoration into the Union of the seceded States and the establishment of satisfactory social and economic relationships between whites and the newly freed slaves. He adopted what he believed would have been Lincoln's moderate program, which was based on faith in the people of the South.

Included would be the pardon of all ex-Confederates who took an oath of allegiance except for former leaders and men of wealth, who could be pardoned only by the President; and bringing the seceded States back into the fold as quickly as possible on condition that they forswear secession and ratify the 13th amendment (1865) to the Constitution, which abolished slavery. Standing behind Johnson on Reconstruc-tion were most northern Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Johnson inevitably clashed with the Radical Republic-ans, led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Benjamin Wade in the Senate. They sought what Johnson regarded as a pu-nitive peace, involving land confiscation and redistribut-ion to blacks; disenfranchisement of ex-Confederates; and full suffrage and legal equality for blacks, as well as economic and educational opportunities for them.

The Radicals, who were motivated by a combination of piety, economics, and politics, believed their program represented realization of the major aim of the war, the abolition of slavery and the guaranteeing of full citizenship privileges to the freedmen. On the other hand, the Radicals surely also recognized that such policies would insure Republican influence in the South. Other northern-ers, who resented the return of many prewar southern leaders to key posts, including Congress, and the imposition by southern legislators of many restrictions on blacks, tended to go along with the Radicals. Furthermore, most northerners were in no mood to relinquish economic gains made during and as a result of the war.

As time went on, the conflict between the President and the congress mounted in intensity. Veto followed Veto, usu-ally based on Johnson's feeling that the rights of the States were being violated. As the Radicals gained in strength, they passed one act after another over the Presidential veto and made abortive attempts to impeach him. They refused to seat southern Senators and Representatives; passed measures restricting the powers of the Presidency; and created legislation, including the 14th and 15th amend-ments, that emphatically stated the legal equality of blacks, guaranteed their civil liberties, and forbade dis-crimination against them.

Johnson executed the letter, if not the spirit, of these laws. In an unprecedented attempt to gain public backing for his position, in the summer of 1866 he toured the East and Middle West, but the Radicals won overwhelming-ly in the fall congressional elections. The next March, they placed the Southern States under military rule until they met certain conditions, including approval of the 14th amendment.

Finally, when Johnson tried to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who sided with the Radicals, the House im-peached Johnson, largely on the basis of his alleged violat-ion of the Tenure of Office Act. Amid exceptional contro-versy - the real issue being whether Congress or the Presi-dent would direct Reconstruction - the Senate tried him in the spring of 1868. He was acquitted by only one vote. Aft-er the trial, the Radicals continued their legislative eff-orts but ultimately secured neither equal rights for blacks nor Republican control of the South. Johnson resisted the Radicals throughout the remainder of his term, but his power and reputation were seriously impaired.

While Johnson was preoccupied with the Reconstruction turmoil, his able Secretary of State William H. Seward made notable gains. In 1866, reasserting the Monroe Doctrine and bolstered but the dispatch of 50,000 troops under Gen. Phil-ip H. Sheridan to the Mexican border, he soon helped per-suade the French to withdraw from Mexico, where they had installed a monarch.

The next year, Seward purchased Alaska from Russia - an action that had also been contemplated in the Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan administrations. For the sum of $7,200,000, the U.S. acquired a vast territory, rich in natural resources, but many people initially reacted by referring to it as `Seward's folly.' The Senate quickly ratified the purchase. Other expansionistic projects proposed by Seward came to naught.

Johnson did not seriously seek renomination by either the Democrats or Republicans, and at the end of his term retired to Tennessee. He nevertheless kept active in political affairs. In 1875 he took a seat in the U.S. Senate, where he was greeted with applause. But, serving only a few months, he died at the age of 66 while visiting the rural home of one of his daughters, about 40 miles from Greeneville.

Grant was born in 1822 along the banks of the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, Ohio. He was christened as Hiram Ulysses, but he apparently later reversed the name. His father was a farmer tanner who had immigrated from Kentucky. The year after Ulysses' birth, the family in which he was the first of 6 children, moved to nearby Georgetown. There, Grant spent his boyhood, experiencing neither wealth nor poverty. He helped his parents on the farm or at the tann-ery, performed odd jobs, and earned a reputation as a horse trainer. Besides studying at local schools, he also briefly studied at academies in Maysville, KY, and Ripley, Ohio.

In 1839 Grant received an appointment to the U.S. Mil-itary Academy, but he entertained no plans for a military career and entered reluctantly. Because of an error, he was registered as Ulysses Simpson Grant, which he was to retain, though his friends always called him `Sam'. He excelled in horsemanship, but was not too interested in his studies ex-cept for mathematics and received a number of demerits. Gradually, however, he came to enjoy West Point. He graduated 21st in a class of 39.

Disappointed at not being detailed to the cavalry upon his graduation in 1843, Grant was assigned to the infantry at Jefferson Barracks, MO, near St. Louis. While there, he met and became engaged to Julia Dent, sister of an academy classmate. The next year, he was reassigned to the Fort Jesup, La., area,and then joined Gen. Zachary Taylor's forces in Texas (1845-46). During the Mexican War (1846-48), though he considered it an endless conflict, he fought with distinction under Taylor and Gen. Winfield Scott in most of the major battles and emerged a 1st Lieutenant. In 1848 he married Miss Dent; they were to raise three sons and one daughter.

In the years 1848-52, other tours of duty followed at Madison Barracks, in Sackets Harbor, N.Y., and at Fort Wayne, in Detroit. Then, unaccompanied by his wife and infant son, Grant traveled across the continent to serve at Fort Vancouver, Wash. (1852-53) and Fort Humboldt, CA (1853-54). Although he gained a captaincy at the first of these posts, at both of them the lonely young officer, also bored and disenchanted with the Army, drank too much. Finally, after a dispute with his commanding officer, he resigned from the military service.

A difficult 7 years followed (years of privation, meni-al pursuits, limited prospects, and despondence) though Grant was reunited with his family and aided by his in-laws. Between 1854 and 1860, in the St. Louis, MO, area he tried his hand at farming, selling firewood, real estate, and bill collecting, but prospered in none. In 1860 he moved to Galena, Illinois, to work as a clerk in a tannery-leather store owned by his family.

Although the Civil War (1861-65) brought tragedy to the Nation, it created opportunity for some men, such as Grant. It catapulted him into national fame and the Presidency. Rising quickly through the ranks from captain to lieutenant general and from leader of an Illinois volunteer company to the top Union command, he displayed remarkable aggressiveness and incisiveness, as well as an excellent mastery of organization and strategy.

Grant first gained renown for his campaigns in the Mississippi River Valley. They culminated in the capture of Vicksburg, Miss., which split the Confederacy. Later, after Grant's victory at Chattanooga, Lincoln placed him in com-mand of the Union armies, and he established his headquart-ers with the Army of the Potomac. Taking advantage of his superior resources in men and material, he perfected plans for destroying the Confederacy by a coordinated offensive on all fronts. The war ended soon after the capitulation of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox Court House, VA, in April 1865.

When hostilities ended, Grant remained at the head of the Army; and won the title of General of the Army. Grateful citizens in the North presented him with homes in several cities and substantial cash gifts. Second in public esteem only to Lincoln, he was mobbed by crowds of people wherever he went. He escaped possible assassination at Ford's Theatre only because he and his wife declined the President's invitation to attend the performance that evening.

Grant's great popularity and the seeming inevitability of his capture of the Presidential nomination in 1868 created friction with President Andrew Johnson. When the latter tried to arrest General Lee for treason, contrary to the terms of Appomattox, Grant threatened to take his case to the people and forced Johnson to back down. Yet on most political matters the general tried to maintain a neutral position - even during Johnson's impeachment trial. When the President had dismissed Secretary of War Stanton in 1867, Grant had accepted the position on an interim basis, but resigned when Congress refused to permit the dismissal. Both parties seriously considered Grant for the Presidential nomination in 1868. Although he had never affiliated with any party, he came to identify with the Radical Republicans.

Nominated easily, he defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour, who made a surprisingly good showing despite his party's failing fortunes. For his second term, in 1872, Grant, the magic of his military reputation still persuasive, triumphed by a much larger margin over Horace Greeley, nominee of the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats.

Grant was well trained to be a general, but ill prepared for the White House. Interpreting executive power narrowly, he looked to Congress or his advisers for guidance and offered no significant legislative program. Above all, he was unable to satisfy the need for a calm from the tur-moil of the previous decade. A key national issue was Re-construction of the South to which end the 15th Amendment was ratified (1870) giving the Blacks the right to vote. Ostensibly committed to Radical policy, Grant sometimes used military force to carry out the laws of Congress, which reflected Republican aims. On the other hand, he allowed southern white supremacists, the `Redeemers,' to take gradual control of the governments of State after State in the former Confederacy. By the end of his second term, Reconstruction had largely ended.

The problems of the Grant administration reflected the loose political and business morality of the period. Business interests frequently sought to dictate political policy while resisting governmental intervention in their practices; and party bosses gained inordinate influence through management of patronage and Federal disbursements.

Grant naively introduced into his Cabinet and staff and took as confidants friends and wealthy men, many of whom turned out to be incompetent or corrupt. As a result, though Grant himself was personally honest, a series of scandals (including the Credit Mobilier and the Whisky Ring) rocked his administration, particularly during his second term. His private secretary, several members of his Cabinet, and some of those in his party in Congress were involved in highly illegal or improper acts. Although Grant took steps to control inflation, restore public credit, and stabilize the currency, he proved unable to manage the speculation, overexpanded credit, and wild business expans-ion of the era. These conditions helped create the Panic of 1873, when unemployment soared and many businesses failed. Profiting from the dismal economic picture and the administration scandals, the Democrats won the House in the following year, for the first time since 1856.

Responding to eastern reformers who objected to the brutality in the Battle of the Washita, Okla. (1868), and other mistreatment of the Indians, Grant (1869) inaugurated his Peace Policy. Hoping to end corruption on the reserva-tions and to provide the natives with examples of morality, he appointed church-nominated men, predominantly Quakers, as Indian agents. Military interference was forbidden on the reservations unless the agents requested it. But the pro-gram proved ineffective. Among other factors, the Indians resisted attempts to turn them into farmers and often made forays off the reservations, which inflamed settlers. At the same time, the Government proved unable to keep whites off the reservations. Military attitude may be indicated by the behavior of General Custer's command which was destroyed by Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn.

Grant achieved notable successes in foreign policy, executed by his capable Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish. The Treaty of Washington, D.C. (1871) settled a series of controversies with Britain, the most prominent of which was the ALABAMA claims. By these, the U.S. sought reparations for damages inflicted on northern ships by Confederate raiders, which had been outfitted in British ports. Grant and Fish also ignored provocations and avoided war with Spain during her suppression of a rebellion in Cuba. Grant tried to annex the Dominican Republic, but the Senate refused assent. A treaty of commercial reciprocity was negotiated with Hawaii which included a stipulation banning disposal of any of Hawaiian territory to a third power.

During Grant's two terms in office, Westinghouse received a patent on his air-brake (1869), the Knights of Labor was formed (1869), the Department of Justice was created (1870), the Chicago fire killing 200 took place (1871), the Women's Christian Temperance Union was organized (1874), and Bell transmitted voice over his telephone (1876).

In the grave constitutional crisis and attendant threats of serious domestic strife that followed the dispu-ted Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, Grant resolutely sought a solution that would preserve our constitutional form of Gov-ernment, and he turned over the reins of Government intact to his successor.

About 6 weeks after leaving office, Grant, his wife, and his youngest son, departed on a worldwide tour that lasted more than 2 years (1877-79), during which they en-joyed regal treatment and met many world leaders. Within the next few years, after returning to the U.S. and settling in New York City, Grant visited the West Indies and made 3 trips to Mexico, on personal, business, and governmental ventures. Meantime, in 1880, he had again sought the Repub-lican Presidential nomination but lost it to James A. Gar-field. Two years later, Grant entered a partner- ship in a financial firm in New York, but the enterprise failed in 1884. About that time, he suffered other economic reverses.

While thus penniless and humiliated, Grant was stricken with cancer of the throat. To help his family, and in a race against death, he frantically wrote his memoirs, a classic in its field that was to earn his heirs almost half a million dollars in royalties. In 1885, a few days after laying down his pen, he died in the summer cottage of a friend at Mount McGregor, N.Y., in the Adirondacks. He was 63 years old.

Hayes, the youngest of 5 children, was born in Dela-ware, Ohio, in 1822. His father, a storekeeper and farmer, died before his birth. An uncle, Sardis Birchard, served as his guardian. After attending local schools, Hayes studied at academies in Norwalk, Ohio, and Middletown, Conn., and in 1842 graduated from Kenyon College, Ohio. He read law for a year at Columbus, and in 1845 completed Harvard Law School. He then took up practice at Lower Sandusky, presently Freemont, Ohio.

In 1849 Hayes moved to Cincinnati. There, he gained attention as a criminal lawyer as well as a defender of fu-gitive slaves, and became active in the Whig Party. In 1852 he married Lucy Ware Webb, who would be the first wife of a President to be a college graduate. They were to have 7 sons and 1 daughter.

After the demise of the Whig Party, in 1855 Hayes be-came a moderate Republican. He was willing to compromise on slavery to avoid war but sought to contain its extension. His first political office, held in the years 1858-61, was as city solicitor of Cincinnati.

When hostilities flared between the North and South, Hayes was appointed a major in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was wounded several times and rose to the rank of brevet major general. While still in the Army, in 1864, he was e-lected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1865-67), where he unenthusiastically supported Radical Republican programs. He resigned in the latter year to run for Govern-or of Ohio.

Between 1868 and 1872 Hayes served 2 terms as Governor. In the latter year, he tried for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, but failed to obtain it. The next year, he moved back to Fremont, and took up residence at Spiegal Grove estate. He was reelected Governor in 1875.

Hayes received the Republican Presidential nomination in 1876. A compromise candidate, he was acceptable because of his integrity, excellent war record, loyalty to the par-ty, and moderate liberalism. He ran against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Governor or New York. An unprecedented and in-tricate election dispute followed, during which both sides at first claimed victory. Tilden was clearly ahead in the popular vote, but lacked one electoral vote for victory; Hayes went to bed on election night believing he had been defeated. But the remaining votes were disputed and the electoral contest was far from over. For months, the Gov-ernment and country were in a quandary. The complication was that a few States each submitted 2 different sets of electoral votes. Tilden needed to win only one vote; Hayes needed all the disputed ones to win.

To settle the impasse, Congress created a special com-mission of 15 members. It consisted of 5 from each House of Congress and 5 from the Supreme Court. The commission fi-nally accepted the returns favoring Hayes by a partisan vote of 8 to 7. The issue was resolved only 2 days before the inauguration. To prevent a Democratic filibuster from frustrating the decision, the Republicans (though Hayes was apparently not personally involved) promised southern Demo-crats at least 1 Cabinet post, railroad subsidies, Federal patronage, and discontinuation of the role of Federal troops in Reconstruction.

Whatever Hayes' part in the affair, this `bargain' cre-ated special difficulties for him. For one thing, though he insisted on merit in his Cabinet appointments and designated some highly competent individuals representing diverse fact-ions, he did choose an exConfederate. This not only raised the question of a `bargain,' but also infuriated many Republicans.

Secondly, Hayes almost immediately withdrew troops from the 2 Southern States where they remained, after obtaining promises from the would-be Democratic governments that they would protect the constitutional privileges of all citizens. He justified this action on the grounds that no State gov-ernments could be legally maintained in power by force of arms. Yet he also apparently believed (mistakenly) that this step offered the hope that the Republicans could make gains in the South by attracting white southerners, especially businessmen and conservatives.

Hayes' power was sapped not only by the circumstances of his election and charges of his participation in the `bargain,' but also by his pledge, made in advance of his election, to serve only one term.

Because of his determination not to relinquish to Congress any of his prerogatives, he clashed repeatedly with members of his own divided party on appointment matters and with the resurgent Democrats on Presidential authority to deploy Federal troops in supervision of elections. The Democrats, during the first half of his term, controlled the lower House of Congress; during the last half, both Houses.

Nevertheless, Hayes managed to effect a modest reform program that possibly was at least partially motivated by a desire to counter the Stalwart-Radical element in his own party, which dubbed Hayes' supporters as `Half-Breeds.' His major point of focus was the civil service.

In the most famous episode of his crusade, during which he freed various jobs from partisan control and strug-gled bitterly with his own party, he removed Chester A. Arthur from the collectorship of customs at New York City. He was unable, however, to obtain the creation of a Civil Service Commission.

A fiscal conservative, Hayes was a foe of inflationary policies - in a day when much of the public clamored for the free coinage of silver and the proliferation of paper money. The Bland-Allison Act (1878), which permitted the limited coinage of silver, passed only over his veto.

Hayes faced other serious problems. The first great national strikes occurred during his administration. In the summer of 1877, for the third time in as many years, the railroads slashed wages. Strikes and riots ensued. Even though Hayes sympathized with the plight of the workers, he sent Federal troops to restore order in certain areas.

In 1879, despite vehement opposition an California, where Chinese labor forced down wages, Hayes vetoed a cong-ressional bill that prohibited Chinese immigration. He con-tended it violated treaty obligations. Later, however, he obtained a modification of the treaty allowing the U.S. to restrict immigration. Other diplomatic activities were lim-ited during the Hayes administration, though Hayes did re-ceive the first Chinese embassy officials and arbitrate a boundary dispute between Argentina and Paraguay.

Other events which took place during Hayes' tour in of-fice: Edison obtained a patent on his phonograph (1878), and invented the first practical electric lamp (1879), Ritty patented the cash register, and the first Salvation Army service was held at New York City (1880).

In 1881 Hayes returned to Spiegel Grove. Except for a visit to Bermuda, frequent speaking tours, and trips to Civ-il War reunions, he dwelt there until his death in 1893. Writing extensively and making many public addresses, he continued active in a variety of humanitarian causes, espec-ially black education and prison reform. He came to view with alarm the increasing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, and grew closer to the common people.

Garfield was born in 1831 at Orange Township in Cuya-hoga Country, Ohio. His father, a canal worker turned farm-er who had already sired 4 children, died before Garfield was 2 years old and left his widow impoverished. She and her offspring continued to work the farm. James, however, attended elementary school during the winter months. As a teenager, he drove boat teams on the Ohio and Erie Canal, and dreamed of a life at sea. But the farthest he traveled, in 1848, was to Pittsburgh. That same year, he returned home to recuperate from an illness.

In the spring of 1849, Garfield attended Geauga Acad-emy, a denominational institution in Chester, OH, and that fall and winter taught at a district school, after which he continued at Geauga. In 1851 he entered Western Reserve Ec-lectic Institute (Hiram College after 1867) at nearby Hiram. For 3 years, he studied and taught at the institute, in-structed on the elementary level, and held various odd jobs. Saving sufficient money, he then enrolled at Williams Col-lege, in Williamstown, Mass., as a junior. He excelled in the classics and public speaking and learned German.

After graduating in 1856, Garfield rejoined the faculty at Western Reserve. The prestige of an eastern college degree contributed to his elevation in 1857 to the presidency of the institute, whose staff consisted of 5 teachers. In addition, he became an accomplished lay preacher-evangelist. In 1858 he married childhood friend Lucretia Rudolph, who subsequently bore him 5 sons and 2 daughters.

Garfield soon received local acclaim in a debate with a pre-Darwin evolutionary theorist and made a statewide lecture tour on the subject. In 1859, as a Republican, he won a seat in the State senate (1860-61). He also studied enough law to be admitted to the bar a year or so later, and set up practice in Hiram.

During the secession crisis, Garfield, a rapidly emerging State leader of his party, advocated coercion to assure the continuity of the Union. Upon the outbreak of the war in 1861, he was commissioned in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry, becoming a lieutenant colonel and then colonel. In January 1862, commanding a brigade, he won a minor vict-ory (a rare Union success at the time) at Middle Creek, Ky. As a result, at the youthful age of 31 he became a brigadier general, but before long illness forced him to take leave.

Meantime, the Republicans in his home district had nominated the absent general for the U.S. House of Represen-tatives. Nevertheless, after his election in 1862, he made good his campaign promise to return to the battlefield. Early the next year, he was appointed as chief of staff in Gen. William Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland, then in the middle of Tennessee. With the support of Garfield but the disapproval of many other officers, Rosecrans made plans to drive Gen. B. Bragg's forces out of the State. Although this goal was achieved, the failure of the second phase of the Union offensive at Chickamauga, Ga., resulted in the discrediting of Rosecrans. Nevertheless, Garfield gained credit for his courageous leadership and won promotion to the rank of major general.

In late 1862 Garfield resigned from the Army to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, to which he was to be reelected 8 times and occupy until 1880. Early in his congressional career, Garfield's belief in a stern Re-construction policy and conservative economic attitude some-times led him to disagree with President Lincoln's policies. Yet he supported his renomination and deeply mourned his assassination. In its wake, he dissuaded a vindictive mob in New York City, where he was visiting, from burning the offices of a Democratic newspaper.

Along with James G. Blaine, Garfield came to be a major ally of Radical Republic leader Thaddeus Stevens. Garfield, reflecting his party's position, staunchly rejected the in-flationary `greenback' program for the issuance of paper money and advocated deflationary `sound-money' policies. On the other hand, he was lukewarm in his advocacy of the par-ty's protective tariff program.

After Stevens died in 1868, Garfield and Blaine captained House Republicans during the stormy and scandal-ridden Grant administration. Garfield was peripherally involved in the Credit Mobilier as well as in a lesser charge of corruption with a construction contractor, but he emerged relatively untainted.

After Blaine's election to the Senate in 1876, Garfield became the House Minority Leader. When the disputed Presidential election of that year came to the Congress, he helped frame the legislation for and served on the commission that settled the issue of disputed electoral votes. As a result, Hayes, whom he had campaigned for, went to the White House.

In 1880 the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature elected Garfield to the U.S.Senate, but he never served there because he soon won his party's Presidential nomination - by a circuitous route. After the convention hopelessly deadlocked over 3 candidates, Garfield triumphed as a `dark horse' on the 36th ballot.

Despite attempts to appease the party's `Stalwart' wing with the choice of Chester A. Arthur for Vice President, the Republicans remained disunited against Gen. Winfield S. Hancock and eked out only a narrow victory. Garfield conducted a good share of the campaign from the `front porch' of his Lawnfield estate in Mentor, Oh.

In hopes of reuniting his party, Garfield appointed a Cabinet representing various Republican factions. But harm-ony did not prevail because he clashed repeatedly with the New York-based Stalwarts on political appointments and pa-tronage at the New York City Customs House. To compound the problem, his Postmaster General soon discovered that Repub-licans in his department were engaged in extensive corrup-tion. Certain contractors had been awarded rural delivery (star) routes on the basis of favoritism, and had reaped un-just gains. Over the objections of implicated politicians, Garfield backed his appointee's well-publicized investiga-tion. His bold actions on such matters won the acclaim of reform leaders.

During the few months he was in office, Garfield ann-ounced to England his desire to revise the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, and his Secretary of State, Blaine, called a conference of American republics to be held in Washington in 1882. This meeting did not take place as scheduled partial-ly because of the President's assassination. (An unrelated event was the establishment of the American Red Cross in 1881).

On July 2, 1881, when vacation-bound Garfield arrived at Washington's Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, a disgruntled officeseeker, Charles J. Guiteau, shot the President twice in the back. Undergoing numerous medical treatments, including Alexander Graham Bell's attempts to find the bullet with his newly invented induction balance electrical device, Garfield lingered on for more than 2 months, at first in the White House and then at a seaside retreat in Elberon, N.J. He died there on September 19.

Arthur was born in 1830 near the Canadian Border at Fairfield or Waterville, Vermont, the eldest son in a large family sired by a Baptist minister who had immigrated from Ireland via Canada. During his first decade of life, his father moved to a series of parishes, predominantly in the Vermont-New York border area. The youth attended schools in various localities until his father settled for 5 years in Union Village (present Greenwich), NY. In 1844 the family relocated to Schenectady, NY. Arthur studied at the Lyceum School for a year and then Union College, partially financ-ing himself by teaching and graduating with honors in 1848.

For the next 5 years, Arthur continued to teach, mainly in the Pownal, VT, area, and attained the rank of principal. Meantime, he had read law. In 1853 he intensified his stud-ies with a New York City firm managed by family friends, was admitted to the bar that same year, and joined them. Be-cause of his antislavery views, the young lawyer associated himself with the emerging Republican Party at its first State convention, provided legal services for fugitive slaves, and in one case dealt a legal blow against segregat-ed public transportation in Brooklyn.

In 1859 Arthur married Ellen Lewis Herndon of Frederic-ksburg, Virginia, daughter of a prominent naval officer. She was to bear 1 daughter and 2 sons. In 1857 Arthur had joined the State militia as a judge advocate. During the Civil War, temporarily discontinuing his legal practice, he went on active duty. He ably served in a variety of admin-istrative posts on the home front: engineer-in-chief, quart-ermaster general, and inspector general.

In 1863 Arthur resumed his law practice and renewed his interest in Republican politics. Five years later, he di-rected election strategy for the Central Grant Club of New York. The next year, he was named counsel for the New York City Tax Commission. In 1871 President Grant, rewarding him for his party loyalty, appointed him as collector of customs of the Port of New York.

Arthur, again proving to be an efficient administrator, hired most of his 1,000 employees on the basis of merit. But he also subscribed to the spoils system, hired more personnel than were needed, and expected them to support the party - particularly U.S. Senator Rosco Conkling's Stalwart Republican machine. President Hayes, a Republican reformer who was at odds with the Stalwarts, removed Arthur in 1878.

Arthur returned to his law practice, and aided the re-venge- ful attempts of Conkling's faction to win a third term for Grant at the 1880 convention. This effort failed, but Arthur received the Vice Presidential nomination under James Garfield. Once in office, Arthur remained a Conkling loyalist, even when the latter clashed with President Garf-ield over patronage.

Arthur, still grieving over the loss of his wife the previous year, assumed the Presidency in 1881 upon the ass-assination of Garfield by a disgruntled job seeker. To the dismay of Conkling and his followers, Arthur rose above par-tisanship. He abandoned his presumed loyalty to the Stal-warts, attempted to unify his party, and became an ardent reformer.

Pursuing efforts initiated under Hayes and Garfield, Arthur pushed prosecution of a series of fraud cases in the Post Office Department, and reformed the civil service. Po-litical party affiliation instead of merit had long deter-mined Federal job appointments. Arthur prodded Congress to action. The Pendleton Act of 1883 prohibited assessment of salary kickbacks from public employees, as well as their re-moval for political reasons. Moreover, it established a bi-partisan Civil Service Commission, which was charged with classification of Federal jobs and the administration of competitive examinations to fill them. Only a fraction of all positions were filled by merit at first, but the new act laid the foundations for a tenured and nonpolitical civil service.

Arthur met less success in his attempts to lower tariff rates. Although he recognized the need to protect fledgling native industries from cheaper foreign goods, he believed that the existing high customs duties and taxes and the resultant Treasury surpluses fostered reckless `pork-barrel' appropriations by Congress. He created a commission, which included protectionists, to study tariff revision. Despite its advice to cut the duties, in the Tariff Act of 1883 Congress continued the protectionist policy, though it reduced some rates.

Although Arthur signed the bill under protest, many westerners and southerners, who felt high tariffs con-tributed to the high cost of manufactured goods and low prices for their farm and other products, turned to the Democratic Party for redress. Arthur did manage to reduce the Treasury surplus by applying about $400 million of it toward payment of the national debt. Then, too, he vetoed but failed to block an 1882 bill that included `pork-barrel' items.

Arthur also vetoed an act suspending Chinese immigration for 10 years but Congress overrode him. In 1883, at a time when only 24 outdated naval ships were in commission, the President approved legislation to build 4 modern steel warships. The next year, he signed a bill creating a rudimentary government for Alaska. Highlights in foreign affairs included: acquisition of the right to construct nautical coaling and repair stations in Hawaii, ratification of a pact of friendship and commerce with Korea, and Senate rejection of a treaty negotiated by Arthur to build a canal through Nicaragua.

In the waning days of his term, Arthur took part in 2 symbolic ceremonies. Marking the beginning of the electric-al age, in December 1884 he pressed a button at the White House that set machinery in motion at a New Orleans exhibit-ion. In February 1885 he dedicated the Washington Monument.

Although Arthur was a respected and popular President, he had made too many enemies within his party. Despite a spirited effort in 1884, he lost his place on the ticket to James G. Blaine. The following year, he even failed to win a nomination for the U.S. Senate from New York.

After the expiration of his Presidential term, Arthur retired to New York City and died less than 2 years later in 1886.

Born in 1837 at Caldwell, New Jersey, Cleveland was christened as Stephen Grover, but stopped using his first name early in his life. He was the fifth of 9 children fathered by a Presbyterian pastor. In 1841 a ministerial reassignment resulted in a family move to Fayetteville, in central New York. There, the boy received an education at home and in village schools until he was 13.

At that time, his father's failing health and financial problems forced Grover to work as a clerk in a local store. When his father took a job as district secretary of a miss-ionary society and move in 1850 to nearby Clinton, N.Y., the youth briefly enrolled at a college preparatory academy there, but soon had to return to his clerk position at Fay-etteville. The death of his father in 1853, shortly after taking a parsonage in Holland Patent, NY, ended the young man's hopes of going to college.

After teaching in 1853-54 at Gotham's New York Institu-tion for the Blind, Cleveland headed west to seek better ec-onomic opportunity. By the spring of 1855, however, he had ventured only as far as the stock farm of his uncle, Lewis F. Allen, near Buffalo, NY. After a summer of assisting in compiling ALLEN'S AMERICAN SHORTHORN HERD BOOK, Cleveland entered a Buffalo law office as an apprentice clerk. In 1859 he was admitted to the bar and began practice. Lacking a martial spirit and still burdened by family financial re-sponsibilities, during the Civil War (1861-65) he hired a substitute, as did many others, to perform his military service.

Cleveland had shown a predilection for Democratic pol-itics as early as 1858, and first worked for the local party organization. Four years later, he was elected as a city ward supervisor, and the following year was appointed as assistant district attorney of Erie County, which included Buffalo. In 1865 he lost a race for district attorney. For the next 5 years, he devoted himself to his law practice. Then he was elected as county sheriff (1871-73), after which he resumed his legal activities. By the mid-1870's, he had attained recognition as one of the leading lawyers in the western part of the State. In 1881 he was elected as mayor of Buffalo, in which position he launched attacks on machine politics that irritated even his own party.

This untainted record helped Cleveland win the Democra-tic gubernatorial nomination in 1882 and a record plurality over a Republican machine candidate. The new Governor exh-ibited a bipartisan independence in office that gained him national recognition, but his resolute exercise of the veto to curb corruption and patronage angered New York City's Tammany Hall Democratic organization. Aided by Republican assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt, he also passed municipal re-form legislation. On the other hand, he blocked reformers' attempts to lower rates of the privately owned New York City commuter railway because he felt they violated the company's right of contract.

Cleveland gained the Presidential nomination in 1884 without Tammany support but gained the backing of reform Republican `mugwumps' who deserted James G. Blaine. The campaign was close, and much mud was slung. Some Republicans claimed Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate son. The Democrats, who were backed by a splinter group of antimachine Republicans, charged Blaine, the Republican candidate, with corruption because of his implication in the Credit Mobilier scandal. He also lost some of the Catholic vote by not repudiating a supporter's charge that the Demo-crats were the party of `rum, Romanism, and rebellion.'

Cleveland entered office firmly convinced he should only administer, execute, and react to congressional laws, but before long chose to exert leadership. Throughout his 2 terms he opposed favoritism, no matter on whose behalf it was instigated. He opened thousands of acres of land to homesteaders that the railroads had falsely claimed had been granted to them. He appointed unbiased and able men to the first Federal commission to regulate railroads, created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. He also returned to the Indians almost 500,000 acres of reservation land that President Arthur's administration had opened to settlement.

Moreover, Cleveland vetoed numerous bills granting pen-sions to individual Union Civil War veterans and their de-pendents, as well as a Grand Army of the Republic sponsored act designed to compensate ex-Union soldiers for non-service incurred disabilities or old age. He championed legislation to lower tariffs, which he felt unduly benefited industry and harmed farmers and workers, but he was unable to get the legislation he wanted through Congress during either of his stints in office.

Fellow Democrats hounded Cleveland for appointments. Although he replaced 2/3 of the Federal bureaucracy in his first term, he irritated machine politicians by urging repeal of the Tenure of Office Act (1867), which had enhanced senatorial control over Presidential removals of previously confirmed officeholders. His strong support of the Civil Service Commission led to a doubling of the number of merit positions, but failed to satisfy all the civil service reformers.

In 1886 Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances Folsom, daughter of a former law partner who on his death had left her as Cleveland's ward. This was the only wedding of a President that has ever been held in the White House, and the bride was the youngest of all First Ladies. She was to bear 2 sons and 3 daughters.

In foreign affairs, Cleveland's administration was act-ive in Central and South American. In 1855, He sent U.S. Marines to Panama. He took a strong stand on the Venezuela boundary dispute with England which enlarged the scope of the Monroe Doctrine. He rejected recent American imperial-ist tendencies and refused to deal with the U.S. residents in Hawaii. He also rejected pressures to intervene in be-half of Cuban insurrectionists and make war with Spain.

Business opposition to his tariff position and intra-party squabbles over patronage probably cost Cleveland re-election in 1888. Although he captured a plurality of the popular vote, he lost the decisive electoral votes of New York and Indiana that he had carried in 1884 to Republican Benjamin Harrison.

Important events which occurred during Cleveland's first term included the following: the AFL was organized with Gompers as first president, The Statue of Liberty was unveiled in New York Harbor, and Geronimo, an Apache chief, was captured ending major Southwest Indian conflict (1886). An 8-hour workday had been a rallying cry for labor since the end of the Civil War. Also in 1886 at a mass meeting to protest violence a dynamite- filled bomb was thrown. The violence of anarchy was introduced to America. On a lighter side, the gramophone disk was invented (1887) by Berliner.

After spending 4 years practicing law in New York City, in 1892 Cleveland was easily reelected over Harrison and the Populist (or People's Party) candidate James B. Weaver. The year Cleveland reentered office, the Panic of 1893 hit the country. Companies went bankrupt, Treasury gold reserves fell, some 500 banks failed, mortgages were foreclosed, and unemployment rose drastically. Advocating deflationary gold-standard policies to insure business confidence and re-store prosperity, he led the congressional fight for repeal of the mildly inflationary Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890). In 1895 he bolstered Treasury reserves and streng-thened the gold standard by obtaining a Governmental loan from Wall Street tycoons J.P. Morgan and August Belmont.

Meanwhile, growing unemployment, low wages, and excess-ively long working hours had created domestic turmoil. In the spring of 1894, Jacob S. Coxey and his `army' marched from the Ohio to Washington, D.C., to petition for unemploy-ment relief. Cleveland approved Attorney General Richard Olney's use of police to disperse the protesters.

Late that same year, the American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, boycotted the cars of the Chicago-based Pullman Palace Car Company, whose workers were striking over wage cuts and the company's paternalistic policies. Olney appointed a small army of special deputies to continue railroad operations. After violence erupted, in a bitterly controversial move, Cleveland ignored the objections of Il Gov. John P. Altgeld, and sent Federal troops to restore or-der. An injunction against labor to insure mail deliveries and prevent interference with interstate commerce brought an end to the strike and resulted in the imprisonment of Debs.

Conservation-minded like Harrison, in 1897 Cleveland created a number of additional forest reserves containing more than 21 million acres. Three years earlier, he had also signed the first Federal legislation designed to pro-tect wildlife on Government lands, the Yellowstone Act.

Foreign affairs claimed a share of Cleveland's att-ention. He reached agreement with Great Britain and Canada over fishing rights in waters adjacent to the latter. He favored Samoan autonomy over British, German, and even Amer-ican intervention and control. He scuttled the treaty Harr-ison had negotiated for the annexation of Hawaii and checked further attempts in that direction. When rebellion broke out in Cuba against Spain, beginning in 1895, Cleveland, ag ainst rising public sentiment and the provocative actions of U.S.-based arms dealers and volunteer expeditions, main-tained official neutrality. During a boundary dispute be-tween Venezuela and Great Britain over the boundary of Brit-ish Guiana, he invoked the Monroe Doctrine and convinced the parties to submit the issue to arbitration.

Cleveland's conservative economic policies failed to end the depression and alienated many Democrats, especially in the South and West. In 1894 the Republicans won land-slide victories in the congressional elections. Two years later, the Democratic convention repudiated Cleveland's ad-ministration and nominated silverite William Jennings Bryan, whom the Populists also endorsed.

Cleveland spent an active retirement at Westland, His recently purchased home in Princeton, NJ. He sat on the board of trustees of the University and the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Although President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him as chairman of a coal strike commission in 1902, the body never met. PRESIDENTIAL PROBLEMS, a collec-tion of his speeches, was published 2 years later. He also wrote various magazine articles and authored FISHING AND SHOOTING SKETCHES (1906). In 1908 he passed away at Princeton.

Cleveland is the only president to be turned out of office by voters, then returned four years later. He may be most famous for actually admitting in the middle of a campaign that he fathered a child with an unmarried woman. But the fact that he at least had the decency to provide child support � and didn't fib about the relationship -- won over the voters. � Miami Herald Tribune 11/24/97

Harrison was born in 1833 at North Bend Ohio, at the estate of his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, who be-came President 7 years later. Benjamin was the second son of 10 children from the second marriage of his father. The latter was a well-to-do farmer who resided near William Hen-ry and who was to be a Member of the U.S. House of Represen-tatives (1853-57). Private tutors, mainly, educated the scholarly youth.

In 1847 Harrison enrolled at Farmers' College in nearby Cincinnati. Three years later, he transferred to Miami U., at Oxford, OH, and in 1852 graduated with distinction. The next year, he married college acquaintance Caroline L. Scott. She later gave birth to a son and a daughter.

From 1852 until 1854 Harrison read law with a prestig-ious Cincinnati firm. After being admitted to the bar, in 1854 he moved to Indianapolis and established a practice. The next year, he was appointed as commissioner for the Fed-eral District Court of Claims. By 1856 he was one of the city's leading attorneys.

Harrison's aversion to slavery guided him to the Repub-lican Party. In 1858 he took over the secretaryship of its State central committee. From 1857 until 1861, he held the elective position of Indianapolis city attorney, and in 1860 won the office of reporter of decisions of the State supreme court (1861-62). Eventually, he compiled INDIANA REPORTS, a multi- volume collection of State court proceedings.

In 1862, the year after the Civil War began, Harrison helped raise a regiment of volunteer infantry, and quickly rose to the rank of Colnl. His strict discipline made him an unpopular brigade commander. For 18 months, his unit guarded sections of the Louisville- Nashville and Nashville - Chattanooga Railroads in Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1864 he ably led his men during Sherman's Atlanta campaign.

After the city's capture, Harrison took leave and re-turned to Indiana at Gov. Oliver P. Morton's bidding to counter Copper-Head, or antiwar, sentiment in the 1864 e-lection. Harrison was also again elected as reporter of the State supreme court (1864-68). He nevertheless returned to service in 1865, was promoted to brevet brigadier general, and rejoined his brigade in the Carolinas after its march through Georgia.

After the war, Harrison resumed his law practice in Indianapolis and adopted Radical Republicanism. In the 1870's he fought against his party's adoption of greenback ideas. He also participated in philanthropic and religious activities. In 1872 he failed to win the nomination for Governor. Four years later, however, because of his excell-ent reputation, he replaced the party's nominee (who had left the campaign amid charges of corruption) but narrowly lost the race.

During the national railroad strike of 1877, Harrison was appointed to the Indianapolis strike settlement commit-tee, and commanded the militia in the city. The next year, he chaired the Republican State convention. In 1880 he headed the delegation to the national convention, where he played a major role in nominating James A. Garfield. Refus-ing a Cabinet post, Harrison accepted a seat in the U.S. Senate (1881-87), but was not reelected because the Demo-crats controlled the Indiana legislation.

In 1888 Harrison obtained the Presidential nomination. Despite powerful business opposition to Democratic attempts to lower tariff rates, incumbent Cleveland received a plur-ality. But Harrison, utilizing a `front porch' campaign, carried the key States of New York and Indiana, and won the Presidency with a majority of the electoral votes.

Because of the frequent illness of Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Harrison personally shaped much foreign policy. In 1889 Blaine's long-awaited first Pan-American Conference met in Washington and formed an informational organization, later named the Pan-American Union. Faced with German intervention in Samoa, to which the British had acquiesced, Harrison arranged with the two nations for a 3-power protectorate. He also obtained an agreement with Britain regarding sealing rights in the Bering Sea.

During Chile's civil war in 1891, a mob attacked some American sailors as a reprisal for detention of a rebel ship in the U.S., and in 1892 Harrison demanded and received a Chilean apology and an indemnity. After an 1893 coup, led by former Americans and abetted by U.S. officials and troops, overthrew the Hawaiian Queen, Harrison backed an annexation treaty, late in his term, but in his 2nd term PresIdent Cleveland was to withdraw the treaty before Senate ratification.

In domestic affairs, Harrison followed party positions and largely deferred leadership to congressional spokesmen. He believed in civil service reform, but pressure for pa-tronage proved strong. He awarded the Postmaster General-ship to a major campaign contributor, who made wholesale ap-pointments of Republican postmasters. To the chagrin of re-formers, Harrison briefly removed civil service guidelines, initiated by Cleveland, to replace Democratic officeholders. Yet, Harrison's extension of the number of classified jobs and appointment of the vocal Theodore Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission angered many powerful party regulars.

Many of the national controversies during the Harrison administration were linked to Republican championing of the protective tariff and disposition of the resultant large Treasury surpluses. In 1890 Harrison signed the McKinley Tariff, which raised duties an average of 48%. The President insisted, however, on adding reciprocity barg-aining provisions for foreign nations that provided tariff reductions for U.S. exports.

Congress, while appropriating the first peacetime billion-dollar-budget, to the dismay of Harrison who favored re-duction of taxes, expanded the Treasury surplus in the following ways: liberalization of pensions for Union Civil War Veterans, their widows, orphans, and dependent parents; Heavy expenditures for river and harbor improvements; Inauguration of free rural mail delivery; and, partly because of foreign policy considerations, the strengthening of the Navy and merchant marine, as well as the construction of seacoast fortifications.

Farmer and laborer grievances (expressed by such organizations as the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, and the Farmers' Alliances) grew rampant during the Harrison administration. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, which he signed, partially responded to their demands for regulation of monopolies and trusts. But it was not strenuously enforced during this period, and was even effectively used against labor organizations.

The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which Harrison approved, attempted to placate the calls of the inflationist debtor groups, like the Farmers' Alliances, for free unlim-ited silver coinage. But the Bill's compromise requirement for modest monthly Treasury purchases of silver proved to be only mildly inflationary. Although creating business and financial apprehension that the weakened gold standard would be abandoned, the bill also did not satisfy those who urged a bimetallic system to check deflation.

In 1889 Harrison opened the Oklahoma District to clam-oring homesteaders. Heralding the modern conservation move-ment, the next year he approved legislation creating several national parks, and the following year set aside more than 13 million acres of public domain for national forest pre-serves. During his administration, a record num-ber of 6 States were admitted to the Union. Largely because of the high McKinley Tariff, the Republicans lost control of Con-gress in 1890, which hurt Harrison's programs. Despite in-traparty disputes, 2 years later he was renominated, but Cleveland defeated him and Populist Party candidate James B. Weaver.

Two weeks before the election, Harrison's wife died. After leaving office, he returned to his Indianapolis law practice. He continued to write and speak, including a lecture series at Stanford University in 1894. Several of his speeches were collected in VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT (1901), and some of his magazine articles in THIS COUNTRY OF OURS(1897). He also remained active in his party. In 1896 he married widow Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, a niece of his first wife. This marriage produced one daughter. In 1898-99 Harrison traveled to Europe as chief counsel for Venezue-la in its dispute with Great Britain over the boundary of British Guiana. Increasingly, he spoke out on the duties of the wealthy and the evils of imperialistic extremes. He died in 1901.

McKinley, the 7th of 9 children, was born in 1843 at Niles, Ohio. Nine years later, his father, an ironmaker, moved to nearby Poland. The youth was educated at local schools and Poland Academy. In 1860 he enrolled at Alleg-heny College, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, but illness and family financial problems forced him to return home after only one term. He then taught at a rural school and clerked in the post office.

In 1861 McKinley enlisted as a private in an Ohio in-fantry regiment that was to be commanded by Col. and future-President Rutherford B. Hayes. McKinley participated in several battles and by war's end had achieved the rank of brevet major. Upon his return to Ohio, he read law with a Youngstown firm, and in the fall of 1866 entered Albany (NY) Law School. Before graduating, however, the following spring he went back to Ohio. Admitted to the bar later that year, he established a practice in Canton.

McKinley, a Republican, campaigned for his Army friend Hayes in his successful gubernatorial race, and won election as prosecuting attorney of Stark County (1869-71). In the latter year, he married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker. Following the early deaths of 2 daughters, Ida, who suffered from epilepsy after 1873, was to become a semi-in-valid and remain so for the rest of her life.

From 1871-75, McKinley practiced law and aided the Republican cause. Service in the U.S. House of Represent-atives (1877-84 and 1885-91) ensued, During this long tour of duty, McKinley won prominence in State and National par-ty affairs.

Although McKinley was a possible compromise Presid-ential candidate in the 1888 Republican convention, he reso-lutely backed Ohio Senator John Sherman, who lost to Benjam-in Harrison. During the convention, McKinley caught the at-tention of Marcus A. Hanna, a wealthy Cleveland businessman who was to become his friend, political mentor, and manager. In 1889 McKinley failed to win the speakership of the U.S. House of Representatives. But he became chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, where he spear- headed the highly protective McKinley Tariff of 1890.

A Democratic gerrymander in Ohio in 1890 cost McKinley reelection, and nationally the Republicans suffered a land slide defeat in the House elections, largely because of their tariff position. But McKinley readily won 2 terms as Governor (1892-96). In 1892 he chaired the Republican nat-ional convention, at which he received a considerable number of votes though he lost the nomination to incumbent President Harrison.

In 1896 McKinley easily gained nomination. In a fierce contest on the heels of a depression, Democrat William Jenn-ings Bryan, endorsed by the Populists and renegade Repub-licans, advocated inflationary silverite policies. Defend-ing the gold standard in a `front porch' campaign, McKinley addressed selected delegations at his home in Canton while Hanna directed the nationwide offensive.

Despite Bryan's strength in the West and the South, ec-onomic recovery reduced debtor enthusiasm for his inflation-ary programs, and antisilver Democrats, such as retiring President Cleveland, refused their endorsement. McKinley had the first popular vote majority since 1872, and the Re-publicans continued the congressional dominance they had gained in 1894 and were not to lose until the elections of 1910.

Postponing monetary reform, McKinley called Congress into special session to enact the Dingley Tariff (1897), which established the highest duties to that date. Although McKinley warned of the danger to the public from trusts, the number of new ones increased markedly during his administration.

Foreign affairs were McKinley's paramount concern. In 1895 Cuba renewed its sporadic revolt against Spain. Pub-licizing incidents of Spanish repression, the American `yel-low press' and expansionist leaders fostered public senti-ment for intervention. At first, backed by some leading businessmen and other anti-imperialists, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. But early in 1898 negotiations suff-ered a setback when Spanish Minister Don de Lome resigned after the newspapers printed a copy of one of his private letters in which he characterized McKinley as weak and vacillating.

About the same time, the U.S. Battleship MAINE, on a courtesy call to Havana, mysteriously exploded killing 260 men. Blaming Spain, interventionist cried `Remember the Maine.' Although Madrid made some concessions on Cuba, McKinley bowed to practically irresistible public and cong-ressional pressure and demanded independence for the island. On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war against Spain.

U.S. sea and land invasions of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, where Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet, quickly brought Spain to her knees. The Treaty of Paris recognized Cuba's independence, and granted Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. Countering those people who contended these acquisitions were contrary to national principles and interests, McKinley justified them with economic, military, and humanitarian arguments.

Under McKinley's leadership, in 1898 the U.S. also ann-exed Hawaii and occupied Wake Island, and the next year partitioned the Samoan Islands with Germany. Beginning in 1899, Filipino revolutionaries engaged U.S. forces in a bloody but futile guerrilla war for independence. In 1900 McKinley appointed William Howard Taft (later U.S. Chief Executive) as head of a commission that was to set up civil rule for the Philippines.

As the major powers intensified their scramble for in-fluence in China, in 1899 Secretary of State John M. Hay achieved recognition of an `Open Door' policy in that na-tion. This granted equal trading rights to all countries. During China's Boxer Rebellion (1900), which sought to expel foreigners, McKinley assigned 5,000 U.S. troops to an inter-national expeditionary force (U.S.A., Britain, Germany, Jap-an) that lifted the siege on the Peking Legation Quarter.

In the Caribbean, McKinley established civil government in Puerto Rico with the help of the Foraker Act (1900). He encouraged Cuba's beginnings in self-rule while restricting her sovereignty by imposing U.S. rights of intervention.

At home, McKinley's approval of the fiscally conser-vative Gold Standard Act of 1900 briefly revived the mon-etary debate. In the Presidential campaign that year, Demo-crat Bryan spoke out again for free silver and railed ag-ainst imperialism. But the majority of voters opted for McKinley's `full dinner pail' and a major role in world af-fairs. He defeated Bryan even more decisively than in 1896.

During his second term, McKinley seemed likely to continue strong overseas involvement. He encouraged Secretary of State Hay's negotiations with Great Britain to terminate restrictions on Central American canal construct-ion set by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850). In domestic affairs, he hinted at changes in tariff and trust policy. But on September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, an anarchist shot him. He died 8 days later.

The first son and second child of 4, `Teddy' Roosevelt was born in 1858 in New York City. His father was a well-to-do glass importer, merchant, and banker; his mother was of aristocratic Georgian stock. Asthmatic in childhood and always nearsighted, the frail boy was carefully supervised and received private tutoring. Nevertheless, he traveled extensively with his parents, who summered at fashionable Atlantic coast resorts and frequently visited Europe.

Roosevelt early demonstrated interest in reading and natural science. On the other hand, building his body through sports, exercise, and eventually rugged outdoor activity, he became a lifelong champion of physical fitness and devotee of the `strenuous life.'

Roosevelt graduated from Harvard University (1876-80), where he was a dedicated student, won membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and participated in Boxing. During his senior year, he started THE NAVAL WAR OF 1812 (1882) - the first of some 40 books and many articles he was to write in the fields of history, politics, and adventure.

The year he graduated, Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee of Boston. They established their home in New York City, though they spent the next summer and fall honeymooning in Europe, during which time he climbed Switzerland's Matterhorn. Meantime, after leaving Harvard, he had attended Columbia Law School for a short while.

Deciding on a political career and gaining the support of various local Republican leaders, Roosevelt next won a seat in the State legislature (1882-84). His independence and zeal for industrial and governmental reform annoyed old-guard politicians, but attracted the attention of newsmen. While heading the New York delegation to the Republican national convention in 1884, he further demonstrated his dislike of machine politics by backing the abortive candidacy of reformer George F. Edmunds. Roosevelt, how-ever, unlike a group of disgruntled `Mugwumps,' refused to bolt the party when James G. Blaine was victorious.

Earlier in the year and only hours after his mother's death, Roosevelt's wife had died shortly after the birth of their only child, a daughter. To conquer his sorrow, within a few months he headed back to the Badlands of Dakota Terr-itory, which he had first visited the previous year and where he had invested in a cattle ranch. From then until 1898, he was to reside periodically in the area and expand his landholding. Living the life of a cowboy, he gained in-spiration for several books, such as his multivolume THE WINNING OF THE WEST (1889-96).

In 1886 Roosevelt ran third in the New York City mayoralty election - a race he recognized he had almost no chance of winning. Later that year, he traveled to London to marry Edith Kermit Carow, a childhood friend. They established their permanent residence at Sagamore Hill, which he had recently constructed near Oyster Bay, Long Island Edith was to give birth to 4 sons and 1 daughter.

Following a 3-year period of writing, part-time residence in Dakota, and political activity, during the years 1889-95, under Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, Roosevelt sat on the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Ever a reformer, he figured prominently in expanding the merit system through such means as competitive examinations. He also angered spoils politicians by attacking campaign assessments of public employees. As president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners (1895-97), he cracked down on police corruption, inaugurated a merit system, and backed social-welfare measures.

Aided by his friend U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge's influence with President McKinley, Roosevelt next served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1897-98), in which office he espoused a strong Navy and manifested an imperialistic attitude. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War (1898), he resigned to accept a lieutenant-colonelcy in a national volunteer cavalry regiment, the `Rough Riders,' which he had helped organize. In Cuba, his bravery vaulted him into the national limelight. Promoted to Colonel, he came home a hero.

In the fall of 1898, New York Republican leaders chose Roosevelt as their candidate for the governorship, which he won by a slim margin. But, resenting his reform and social welfare programs, the State hierarchy maneuvered him into accepting the Vice-Presidential nomination in 1900. He contributed significantly to the heavy Republican victory, and later took over the Presidency upon McKinley's assassination in 1901. Three years hence, he was triumphantly elected over conservative Democrat Alton B. Parker.

Believing the President should be limited only by specific constitutional prohibitions, Roosevelt inaugurated an extensive reform program that promised a `Square Deal' for labor, capital, and the general public. He initiated many suits against big business, becoming known as a Trust Buster, though he distinguished between `good' and `bad' ones, and encouraged legislation to speed up prosecution.

Reacting to `muck-raking' denunciations of business ab-uses, Roosevelt was instrumental in enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906); signed legislation for the inspec-tion of stockyards and packinghouses; and backed the Hepburn Act (1906), which expanded Interstate Commerce Commission control over railroads, express companies, and terminal facilities.

During the coal strike in 1902, Roosevelt made unprec-edented use of Presidential influence to pressure mine own-ers into arbitration with labor. He also forced the rail-roads to comply with published rate schedules. In 1903 he convinced Congress to establish the Department of Commerce and Labor. When he entertained Booker T. Washington at a White House dinner, the first black man to be accorded this privilege, Roosevelt was roundly criticized in the South. Nevertheless, at Washington's behest, he appointed a few black officeholders.

Despite opposition from business interests and many westerners, Roosevelt also pushed the cause of conservation. His National Conservation Conference (1908) focused the pub-lic's attention on problems in this field and resulted in several beneficial programs. He also added about 150 mil-lion acres to the national forests, set aside extensive coal reserves and land for potential public dam sites, supported irrigation projects, founded many wildlife preserves, and expanded the number of national parks and monuments.

In international affairs, Roosevelt followed the principle `Speak softly and carry a big stick.' He viewed the Navy as the key to imperial power, and in 1907-9 sent a fleet on a world cruise to impress Congress and foreign nations. To quicken naval movements, he obtained Senate approval of the second Hay- Pauncefote Treaty (1901). It removed earlier British-U.S. restrictions on unilateral construction of a Central American canal, but required that all nations enjoy equal access to it and pay equal tolls.

Two years later, Roosevelt aided a rebellion in Colom-bia that created the Republic of Panama and led to U.S. con-trol of the Panama Canal Zone. He also began construction of the canal (1904-14) under the Army Corps of Engineers. While inspecting its early stages, he became the first President to leave U.S. soil while in office.

In response to the threat of armed intervention by various European nations on behalf of their creditors in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, the President issued the Roosevelt Corollary (1904) to the Monroe Doctrine. It defended the right of the U.S. to intervene in the affairs of Latin American countries.

Roosevelt also spurred settlement in 1903 of British, Canadian, and U.S. boundary claims in Alaska. For his role in negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905), which concluded the Russo-Japanese War, he became the first American recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1906). That year, he induced France to participate in a 13-nation conference that discussed the role of various European powers in Morocco; and appointed a provisional governor of Cuba, who helped that country resolve civil strife.

To ease strained relations with Japan, in 1907 Roosevelt convinced a San Francisco school board to abandon its newly inaugurated policy of segregating Oriental children. The next year, he won Japanese agreement to U.S. immigration restrictions and to an `Open Door' pact in China.

Pledged to leave office after his second term, Roosevelt backed William Howard Taft as his successor. In 1909-10 Roosevelt went on an African hunting and scientific expedition outfitted by the Smithsonian Institution, toured Europe, lectured at the Sorbonne and Oxford Universities, represented the U.S. at the funeral of King Edward VII of Britain, and returned to a triumphal parade in New York City. At Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt continued writing.

Feeling that President Taft had abandoned his policies, Roosevelt sought the Presidential nomination in 1912. When Taft became the candidate, after a bitter pre-convention struggle, Roosevelt bolted the party and ran on the Progres-sive, or `Bull Moose' ticket. Surviving an assassination attempt in Milwaukee, he gained more votes than Taft, but the Republican split gave the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

In 1912 Roosevelt was named as president of the American Historical Association. Illness forced him to return home from an exploration (1913-14) of a branch of the Amazon River in Brazil. He criticized Wilson's neutrality at the outbreak of World War I (1914-18). Convinced that the Progressive Party lacked a future, in 1916 Roosevelt refused its Presidential nomination. He supported Republican Charles Evans Hughes, but Wilson was reelected.

When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt volunteered to raise a regiment, but Wilson refused his offer. Although bitter, Roosevelt joined Liberty Loan drives. After the war, in which one of his sons died and two were badly wound-ed, he opposed the League of Nations. While some Republic-ans were discussing the possibility of his Pres-idential candidacy in 1920, he died in his 61st year in 1919.

Taft was born in 1857 at Mount Auburn (now part of Cin-cinnati), Ohio. His father, Alphonso, was a well-to-do law-yer-judge who was to serve under President Grant as Secret-ary of War and Attorney General; and under Arthur as Minis-ter to Austria-Hungary and Russia. Young Taft was the third son in a family of six.

William was educated in the public schools, and gradua-ted second in his class from Woodward High School (1870-74). He won similar distinction at Yale (1874-78) where he was class salutatorian. The summer of his graduation, he read law with his father's firm, and in the fall enrolled at Cin-cinnati Law School. He soon also took a job as court report-er for the Cincinnati COMMERCIAL. In 1880 he took his deg-ree and was admitted to the bar.

About this time, Taft began to take part in Republican activities. As a reward, he was appointed assistant prose-cutor of Hamilton County (1881-82). President Arthur then designated him as district collector of internal rev-enue (1882-83). During the summer and fall of 1883, he vis-ited his diplomat parents in Vienna and traveled about Europe.

From late 1883 until 1887, Taft practiced law, after 1885 serving as assistant county solicitor; and participated in politics. In 1886 he married Helen Herron, daughter of a leading State Republican. The couple were to have 2 sons and 1 daughter. The year after his marriage, Taft was named to a vacancy on the Ohio superior court. The following year, retaining his seat, he won the only election he ever took part in except for the Presidency. He held the judgeship until 1890.

Taft next served as U.S. Solicitor General (1890-92) and briefly as Acting Attorney General under President Ben-jamin Harrison. At this time, he became acquainted with Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. During the period (1892-1900), Taft was Federal judge for the Sixth Circuit (Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and Tennessee). Although he often ruled in favor of labor and against industry, he gained an antilabor reputation because of antistrike injunc-tions he issued. While on the bench, he also taught part time at and was dean of the Cincinnati Law School (1896-1900).

After President McKinley promised him a seat on the Supreme Court when a vacancy occurred, in 1900 Taft headed a civilian governmental commission in the Philippines, which the U.S. had acquired at the end of the Spanish-American War (1898). Although originally averse to annexation, he bel-ieved the Filipinos required training before independence and that this could not be accomplished until all insurrect-ion ceased. As the islands' Governor-General (1901-4), he encouraged limited self-government; reformed the court sys-tem; built roads, harbors, and schools; improved the economy ;and fostered land reform. Feeling responsible for the in-habitants, he twice unselfishly refused President Roosev-elt's offer of a Supreme Court appointment.

Early in 1904 Taft became Secretary of War, though he continued his patronage of the Philippines. A talented ad-ministrator and conciliator, he also handled many special assignments for Roosevelt. Taft superintended early cons-truction of the Panama Canal; went on a diplomatic mission to Tokyo; and, as provisional governor of Cuba, helped that country end internal strife.

Although Taft undoubtedly preferred a Supreme Court judge ship, in 1908 his family and President Roosevelt pers-uaded him to accept the Republican Presidential nomination. Taft disliked campaigning and did not possess Roosevelt's magnetism, but his conservative judicial style appealed to many voters, and he defeated William Jennings Bryan by more than a million votes.

During his single term, Taft initiated more antitrust suits than Roosevelt, and was also active in conservation. Taft obtained legislation removing millions of acres of Fed-eral land from public sale; rescinded his predecessor's ord-er to reserve certain lands as possible public dam sites, but ordered a study to determine what acreage should be pro-tected; formed a Bureau of Mines in the Department of the Interior to safeguard mineral deposits; and supported a bond issue to undertake irrigation projects.

Furthermore, Taft backed extension of Interstate Com-merce commission power over the communications industry and in establishment of railroad rates; supported a modest tax on corporate earnings; advocated economy in Government; formed a commission to study Federal finances; signed cam-paign reform legislation; extended the Civil Service merit system; created the Parcel Post and Postal savings systems; and oversaw creation of a Children's Bureau in the Depart-ment of Commerce and Labor. He also urged and saw ratifica-tion of the 16th amendment to the Constitution, which auth-orized a Federal tax on personal income. The 17th amend-ment, which provided for the direct election of Senators, was passed by Congress but not ratified until 1913. Arizona and New Mexico, the last of the 48 contiguous States, were admitted to the Union during his administration.

Despite these accomplishments, Taft's legalistic con-cept of his office and his increasing reliance on Republican congressional leadership soon alienated reformers. He hoped for compromise to reduce tariffs, but defended the Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909). This outraged progressives who sought rate reductions as a further challenge to the trusts. Taft was accused of being anticonservationist because he dismissed Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot, a Roosevelt ally, after Pinchot had quarreled publicly on policy matters with him and Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger.

Taft's conduct of foreign affairs was also criticized. Included were his `dollar Diplomacy' in the Far East and Latin America, U.S. inaction in the face of Japanese and Russian penetration in Manchuria, and American intervention to insure political and financial order in Nicaragua. Then, too, Taft suffered some stunning diplomatic setbacks. He pushed a tariff reciprocity treaty with Canada through Con-gress, but Canadians rejected the measure, at least partly because they feared annexation. With France and Great Brit-ain, he negotiated agreements to arbitrate international disputes, but the Senate amended the treaties to such a de-gree that the embarrassed Taft rescinded them

Other memorable events which occurred during Taft's ad-ministration are the following: Peary discovered the North Pole (1909); the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated (1910), Japan annexed Korea (1910), and the combine is in-vented by Holt (1911). The IWW (Wobblies), which advocated outright class warfare, sabo- tage and violence, expanding from the west, reached the East coast.

Accusing Taft of abandoning meaningful reform, Theodore Roosevelt sought to regain the Republican nomination in 1912, but lost to Taft. Roosevelt left the party and became the Progressive (`Bull Moose') candidate. This schism ass-ured the election of Woodrow Wilson.

Taft returned to his legal career. From 1913 until 1921, he held a chair in constitutional law at Yale Univers-ity. When the World War broke out in Europe in 1914, he at first favored neutrality. In 1916 he backed Republican can-didate Charles Evans Hughes. Later, Taft aided the U.S. war effort as cochairman of the National War Labor Board (1918-19). With certain reservations, he supported President Wil-son on the League of Nations.

Taft also served as an official of various philanthrop-ic and educational institutions, including the American Red Cross, Yale University, and Hampton Institute. His writings and lectures were published in books, magazines, and papers.

In 1921 President Harding fulfilled Taft's long-cher-ished ambition by designating him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921-30), in which position he served indus-triously and expedited the flow of Court business. In 1930, a month after he retired, he died in Washington, D.C.

(Thomas) Woodrow Wilson was born in 1856, the eldest son and third child of a family of four. It was in the manse of the First Presbyterian Church, Staunton, Virginia, where his father was pastor. During Woodrow's boyhood, Rev. Wilson held several posts in the South. Shortly after the youth's first birthday, the family moved to Augusta, Georg-ia. In 1870 his father began teaching at a seminary in Co-lumbia, South Carolina, and for the next few years also held a nearby pastorate. Parents, tutors, and local schools pro-vided Woodrow with his early eduction.

In 1873 Wilson attended Davidson (NC) College, a small Presbyterian institution. The following year, illness forced him to rejoin his family at their new home in Wil-mington, NC. He next won a B.A. at the College of New Jer-sey (Princeton University after 1896), which he attended during the period 1875-79. He was not only a serious stu-dent, but also an able orator and debater.

Upon graduation, Wilson entered the University of Virg-inia Law School. Late in 1880, however, ill health once ag-ain forced him to return to Wilmington, where he carried on his study. In 1882 he received his degree, was admitted to the Georgia bar, and set up a law practice with a friend in Atlanta. Before long, however, he lost interest in the profession.

In the fall of 1883, Wilson enrolled at the graduate school of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Two years later, his first book, CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT, was pub-lished. That same year, he married Ellen L. Axson, daughter of a Presbyterian minister. She was to bear 3 daughters.

From 1885 until 1888, Wilson held a professorship of history at Bryn Mawr (PA) College. During this time, in 1886, he won his Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hop-kins. He next taught history and political economy (1888-90) at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. He then be-came professor of jurisprudence and political economy at the College of New Jersey (Princeton). By 1902, he had authored 9 books and 32 articles. During the interim, he had refused 3 offers of the University of Virginia presidency.

In 1902 Princeton's board of trustees unanimously chose Wilson as president. His fight to `democratize' the instit-ution met with opposition from many faculty and alumni, but brought him some national recognition and encouraged an int-erest in politics. In 1907 State Democratic leaders consid-ered him as a U.S. Senate nominee, but he withdrew after re-formers attacked him as a machine spokesman.

Identifying himself with moderate progressivism, in the fall of 1909 Wilson was elected as head of the Short Ballot Association, a national organization dedicated to improving local government. Further broadening his reputation, he al-so began to speak out against trusts and high Republican-in-spired tariffs.

In 1910 Wilson resigned from Princeton to become the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Asserting his independ-ence of party leaders and refusing to make patronage pledg-es, he campaigned as a reformer and won election by a wide margin. The Democrats also won enough votes to control the legislature. Wilson blocked the legislative selection of a party-backed candidate to the U.S. Senate, and pushed through significant measures. Included were those dealing with direct primary and other election reforms, regulation of utilities, pure food protection, woman and child labor restrictions, and employers' liability. When Republicans took over the legislature in 1912, Wilson refused to com-promise and vetoed 57 bills.

In pursuit of the Presidential nomination late in 1911, Wilson began a nationwide series of speeches. The national convention deadlocked the next year and nominated him on the 46th ballot. He then stumped the country and expounded his `New Freedom.' This program emphasized restoration of the Government to the people through control of special-privil-ege groups by the initiation of various reforms, especially in the fields of tariff revision and the regulation of trusts and banks. Benefiting from the split between Repub-lican William Howard Taft and Progressive Theodore Roose-velt, Wilson won only 42% of the popular vote but carried 40 of the 48 States.

As President, Wilson felt he needed to exert strong leadership to fulfill his self-conceived role as a direct representative of the people. He became the first Chief Ex-ecutive since John Adams to address joint congressional ses-sions; inaugurated regularly scheduled press conferences; championed substantially lowered rates in the Underwood Tar-iff Act (1913), which included the first constitutional Fed-eral income tax; fought for the Federal Reserve Act (1913) to stabilize and regulate currency through regional govern-mental banks controlled by a board of Presidential appoint-ees; established the Federal Trade Commission (1914) to pre-vent unfair business practices; strengthened trust legisla-tion through the Clayton Anti-trust bill; and recognized the legality of labor unions and their right to strike.

Meanwhile, in 1914, Wilson's wife had died. The next year, he married widow Edith Bolling Galt. The couple had no children. Before the 1916 election, Wilson signed bills for the Federal Farm Loan Act (1916), Keating-Owen Child La-bor Act (1916), Adamson Act, an 8-hour day for railroad workers (1916), though the Supreme Court later declared some of this legislation to be unconstitutional.

Wilson had not been in office too long before Latin Am-erican and European affairs captured his attention. In 1914, after incidents at Tampico and Veracruz, Mexico, he sent in troops that captured the latter city, but mediators prevented the outbreak of a full-scale war. Two years la-ter, he dispatched a military expedition into Mexico under General Pershing in retaliation against raids that revolut-ionary Pancho Villa had made into Texas and New Mexico.

In the Caribbean, Wilson continued the traditional Am-erican role of intervention. Mainly to quell revolutionary strife and protect U.S. interests, in 1915 and 1916 he dep-loyed military forces to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, respectively, and established virtual protectorates. In 1917 he acquired the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million.

The situation in Europe was far more serious. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Wilson proclaimed U.S. neutrality. It proved to be difficult to maintain. The President protested to Great Britain over her blockade ag-ainst nonbelligerent maritime trade. But Germany's actions were even more alarming. To halt the flow of material to France and Britain, beginning early in 1915 her submarines (U-boats) sank neutral ships without warning. Wilson's complaints went unheeded. After the sinking of the LUSITANIA (1915), a British liner carrying many Americans, Wilson fur-ther protested and Germany relented. Following another sim-ilar episode, in the spring of 1916 he threatened to break off diplomatic relations and Germany again backed down.

During the 1916 election campaign, defending his domestic program and employing the slogan `He kept us out of the war,' Wilson eked out a narrow victory in the electoral college over Republican Charles Evans Hughes.

In an attempt at mediation, early in 1917 Wilson pro-posed to the European powers a `peace without victory' plan that he felt would insure a just and equitable end to the conflict, but both sides were reluctant to negotiate. Mean-time, most Americans had become convinced that Germany and her allies were the aggressors. Events soon underscored this position. The Germans launched an unrestricted submarine offensive in late January 1917 on the gamble that it would crush the Allies before the expected U.S. entry could affect the outcome.

After Wilson severed diplomatic relations the next month, antiGerman feeling in the country increased because of the publication of the Zimmermann Note, a secret proposal for an alliance of Mexico, Japan, and Germany against the U.S. Following the sinking of more American vessels, in A-pril 1917 Congress declared war. Wilson, who viewed it as a moral crusade to preserve freedom, and democracy against German autocracy, directed the mobilization of the Armed Forces and the production of military material that helped bring Allied victory in November 1918.

Earlier that same year, distressed by Bolshevik, or Red (Communist), advances in the Russian civil war among other reasons, Wilson had supported Allied military intervention to aid pro-democratic Russians. It lasted until 1920.

The World War I armistice was partly based on Wilson's `Fourteen Points,' which he had proposed early in 1918 as the basis for a lasting peace. Applauded by many Europeans, late that same year Wilson and his mostly Democratic delega-tion arrived at the Paris Peace Conference. Although he was forced to compromise on parts of his plan, he obtained Euro-pean commitments to a League of Nations, which he trusted would resolve future international difference. Provisions for the league were incorporated into the Peace Treaty of Versailles. These efforts were to win Wilson the Nobel Peace Prize of 1919.

That summer, Wilson presented the treaty to the Senate for ratification. Even though he faced a Republican major-ity there following the 1918 elections, he adamantly advoca-ted unconditional adoption of the treaty and the league. In September he launched a `whistle-stop' tour to build up pub-lic support for ratification. Yet the Senate never ratified the treaty, and it was not until President Harding took over from Wilson that a joint congressional resolution formally ended the war. The latter's uncompromising stance was not the only reason for the Senate's lack of cooperation. Also involved were partisanship and the return of isolationist sentiment.

Three amendments were enacted during Wilson's tour in office. The 17th, providing for direct election of U.S. Senators, was passed by Congress in 1912 and ratified in 1913. The 18th which was to have such a long lasting impact on American society, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors, was passed in 1917 and ratified in 1920. The 19th, guaranteeing suffrage for women, had been introduced as early as 1878, was passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified in 1920. However, in October 1919 a stroke incapacitated Wilson, and he remained under the protective care of his wife until Harding took over the reins of Government in March 1921.

Before Wilson was stricken, he and the Nation had be-come fearful of the rise of domestic Communism as well as the outbreak of labor unrest and political agitation. As a result, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer arrested many `radicals' and deported some of them.

In 1920 Republican Warren G. Harding swamped James M. Cox, who supported the League of Nations. During his re-tirement, Wilson never recovered his health. His wife min-istered to him at their recently purchased home in Washing-ton D.C. Although he joined a law firm, he never practiced. He died in 1924.

Harding was born in 1865 on a farm at Corsica (Blooming Grove Township), a rural town in north-central Ohio, the re-gion that was to be his home until he entered national pol-itics. Five years later, the family moved to Caledonia. There, Warren's father, who had been a teacher as well as a farmer, practiced homeopathic medicine. The youth, who was the eldest of 8 children, attended public schools. His emp-loyment included work as a printer's devil for the ARGUS.

Harding won his B.S. degree from Ohio Central College at Iberia (1879-82). During these years, besides holding temporary jobs, he edited the school newspaper and yearbook, played in the band, and participated in debates. In 1882 his parents moved to Marion, where he soon joined them. He taught one term at a rural school, briefly studied law, sold insurance, and then went to work as a reporter and general assistant at the weekly DEMOCRATIC MIRROR. In 1884 he and 2 partners purchased for $300 the STAR, a 4-page weekly that was close to bankruptcy. Inside of 2 years, Harding bought out his associates.

At first, Harding participated in all phases of news-paper production. But, as his paper turned into a daily and circulation grew along with the town, he became a prosperous publisher and influential civic leader. He held director-ships in a bank, lumber company, and telephone exchange; served as trustee of a Baptist church; and figured promin-ently in local charities and fraternal organizations.

In 1891 Harding married Florence Kling DeWolfe, the divorced daughter of a local banker. They moved into a home they had constructed the year before in anticipation of their marriage, which proved to be childless. About this time, Harding became seriously interested in politics and joined the Republican party. In 1892 the voters rejected him as county auditor, but 3 years later awarded him the office. He next sat in the State senate (1899-1903), where he became floor leader, and then held the position of Lieutenant Gov-ernor (1904-6).

For the next 4 years, Harding concentrated mainly on his newspaper business. In 1910, by a wide margin, he lost a bid for the governorship. Two years later, he presented the nominating speech for President Taft at the Republican national convention. Harding next served in the U.S. Senate (1815-21). In 1916 he chaired the Republican convention and delivered the keynote address.

When the 1920 convention deadlocked, party leaders picked Harding, who was backed by Ohio politician-lobbyist Harry M. Daugherty, as the compromise Presidential nominee. Conducting essentially a `front-porch' campaign, he offered voters a soothing formula for a return to `normalcy' and the restoration of peace and prosperity from the tumult of World War I and the 1920 economic panic. Democrat James M. Cox crusaded for U.S. participation in the League of Nations, but Harding's vague pronouncements on the subject could ap-peal to both its supporters and enemies. He and running mate Calvin Coolidge won more than 60% of the popular vote.

Many administration programs were directed by Repub-lican congressional spokesmen and such able Cabinet members as Secretaries of State, Commerce, and Treasury, Charles Ev-ans Hughes, Herbert C. Hoover, and Andrew W. Mellon. It was also during his administration that the first women was ap-pointed to the Senate and the first to preside over the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, some of Harding's Cabinet appointees and other officials proved to be corrupt. He signed measures that ended wartime economic controls; cut taxes, particularly for corporations; created the Bureau of Budget and Veterans' Bureau; reimposed protective tariffs; and imposed the first immigration quota act (1921).

In international affairs, Harding and Secretary of State Hughes viewed his election as a mandate against mem-bership in the League of Nations or European collective sec-urity arrangements. Yet, in response to a Senate resolution urging an international disarmament meeting, Harding con-vened the Washington (D.C.) Conference (1821-22). Five of the major powers in attendance, US., Great Britain, Japan, Italy, & France) set a ratio of capital warships, restricted their tonnage and armament, and limited the use of submar-ines. Other agreements reached among representatives of the various Nations present outlawed gas warfare, affirmed ter-ritorial claims in the Pacific, and guaranteed the `Open Door' policy in China and her territorial integrity and independence.

By 1923, though many people praised Harding for these diplomatic achievements and for reviving prosperity, his ad-ministration faced mounting difficulties. Democrat gains in the 1922 midterm elections and Republican party schism cost him effective control of the Congress. Worse, insistent ru-mors that high officeholders were using their positions for personal enrichment began to spread. These complaints ev-entually centered on graft in the Veterans' Bureau and in the Office of Alien Property Custodian; and Interior Secret-ary Albert B. Fall's leasing to private interests naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.

Harding apparently felt responsible for the wrongdoings of his appointees. During a tour of the West in 1923, he received information detailing the magnitude of the corrup-tion. But he became ill in Alaska and passed away in San Francisco on the return trip. He died before the full ex-tent of the scandals became public knowledge. Later, sev-eral key administration figures were fined, imprisoned, or forced to resign.

Born on Independence Day 1872 in Plymounth (Plymouth Notch), Vermont., John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., was the only son and the eldest of 2 children from the first marriage of his father, a storekeeper, postmaster, notary public, and justice of the peace. Young Coolidge eventually dropped his first name and the `Jr.' suffix. When he was 12 years old, his mother died. About 7 years later, his father remarried.

Calvin attended a district elementary school and graduated from high school, the private Black River Academy in nearby Ludlow, in 1890. After illness delayed his plans for college, in the spring of 1891 he studied at St. Johnsbury (VT) Academy. That fall, he entered Amherst (MA) College and 4 years later took a B.A. degree with honors. He then read law in Northampton, MA. After being admitted to the bar in 1897, he established a practice there.

Before long, Coolidge became active in politics on behalf of the Republican Party, which he came to serve as a local official. During the period 1899-1904, he held the city offices of councilman, solicitor, and court clerk. The next year, he married Grace A. Goodhue, another former Vermonter, who taught at a Northampton school for the deaf. The couple were to have 2 sons.

In 1907-8 Coolidge served in the lower house of the State legislature. The following year, he returned to his law practice. He was mayor of Northampton in 1910-11. From 1912 until 1915 he sat in the upper house of the legislature, where he rose to the presidency. Three consecutive terms as Lieutenant Governor (1916-18) followed. In 1918 Coolidge won the governorship. During the Boston police strike of 1919 (the same year he abandoned his law practice), he gained nationwide recognition when he deployed the National Guard to control crime and maintain order. That fall, he was reelected as Governor by a large margin.

The next year, the Republican national convention nominated Coolidge as the Vice President on the soon-to-be victorious Harding ticket. When the latter passed away in 1923, Coolidge was visiting his family in Vermont. His father administered the oath of office to him in the home where he had passed his boyhood.

As the scandals of the Harding administration surfaced, Coolidge encouraged governmental prosecution of offenders. This action and his personal integrity restored public con-fidence in the Presidency and the Republican Party. He was nominated for reelection in 1924 and won with the promise of a continuation of `Coolidge prosperity.' He captured more than 54% of the popular vote in defeating Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert M. La Follette.

Coolidge's emphasis on traditional moral and economic precepts reassured people in a time of social flux. This was the age of tin lizzies, flagpole sitters, speakeasies, Rudolph Valentino, flappers, gun molls, and jazz. Although affluence was unprecedented, the Ku Klux Klan perpetrated acts of violence, prohibition violations were common, and some segments of the population frowned on traditional morality.

Coolidge sent few pieces of legislation to Congress, maintained that Federal programs threatened individual free-dom and initiative, and pledged maintenance of the status quo. He is quoted as saying that `The Business of America is Business' and the Government should stay out of it. He refused to interfere with the massive speculation taking place in the securities market. He vetoed a proposed Fed-eral power project at Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River; slowed antitrust actions; blocked plans to subsidize farm-ers, who had suffered from a depression since the beginning of the decade; and advocated tax cuts, governmental economy, and high protective tariffs. In 1924 he signed a bill that reduced the strict quotas on immigration, and favored entry from Northern Europe.

In the realm of foreign policy, Coolidge opposed inter-national agreements to cancel foreign debts, stabilize cur-rency, and reduce tariffs - though he usually deferred to his Secre- taries of State, Charles Evans Hughes and Frank B. Kellogg. The latter sponsored the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), a multinational agreement to outlaw war. On the other hand, though Coolidge and Congress favored U.S. part-icipation in the World Court, they imposed restrictions that ruled out formal American membership. At the invitation of the President of Cuba, Coolidge addressed the Sixth Inter-American Conference (1928), in Havana.

A reluctant conversationalist, Coolidge sometimes seemed remote. Yet, demonstrating his accessibility, he was the last President who held regular White House receptions for the general citizenry. Seeming to enjoy ceremonial and symbolic aspects of office, he posed for a multitude of photographs with diverse groups, delivered many speeches, and received scores of delegations.

Other events which took place during his administration were: citizenship was granted to non-citizen American Indians (1924); transcontinental air service was established (1924); the U.S. Foreign Service was created (1924), the first woman governor was elected (1925); Tennessee enacted a law making it unlawful to teach Darwin's theory of evolution (1925); Byrd and Bennet flew over the North Pole (1926); Lindbergh flew solo over the Atlantic (1927); and Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted (1927).

Despite Coolidge's continued popularity, he chose not to run for reelection in 1928 and retired to Northampton the next year- just a few months before the Wall Street Crash and the start of the Great Depression. In 1929 his autobiography appeared serially in a magazine and book form. From 1930 to 1931, in a daily syndicated newspaper column, he attacked governmental economic interference and defended self-reliance. He also served as director of the New York Life Insurance Company, chairman of the Nonpartisan Railroad Commission, trustee of Amherst College and the National Geographic Society, president of the American Antiquarian Society, and honorary head of the Foundation for the blind. He died in 1933 at Northampton.

The second child in a family of 3, Hoover was born in 1874 at West Branch, Iowa. Six years later, his father, a blacksmith and farm implement salesman, died. For 8 months beginning in the summer of 1881, Herbert stayed with an un-cle, Laban Miles, an Indian agent in Indian Territory (pres-ent Oklahoma). In 1884 Mrs. Hoover, a Quaker minister, died, and relatives agreed to raise her orphaned children separately. Herbert briefly resided with an uncle, Allen Hoover, who farmed nearby.

In 1885 Herbert moved to Newberg, Oregon, to live with another uncle, Dr. Henry J. Minthorn, a physician and busi-nessman. Hoover briefly attended public school and then en-rolled in the first class of the Pacific Academy (present George Fox College), where his uncle was superintendent. Three years later, in 1888, Hoover graduated. That same year, the Minthorns moved to Salem, OR. Herbert served as office boy for his uncle, who ran a land business; learned to type and keep books; and attended business school at night.

In 1891, when Hoover was not quite 17 years old, he attended the newly opened Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. While specializing in geology and mining engineering, he managed the baseball and football teams and held various part-time jobs, including 2 summers of work for the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1895 he was awarded a B.A. degree, and spent the summer again working for the survey.

That fall, unable to obtain a professional position, Hoover worked as a miner in Nevada. Early the following year, he went to San Francisco and managed to find a job as an aide in a mining engineering firm. In 1897 his employers, who were impressed with his technical competence and budding executive skills, recommended him for a position in western Australia. In 1897-98 he managed gold extraction operations there for a British firm.

Hoover next arranged to enter the employ of the Chinese Government as a mining engineer-consultant. Before going to China, early in 1899 he returned to California and married his university sweetheart, Lou Henry, daughter of a Monterey, CA, banker, who was to bear 2 sons. The couple sailed the next day. For the next 2 decades, they were to share an adventurous life on several continents.

In 1900, during China's Boxer Rebellion, directed primarily against foreigners and their Chinese associates, Hoover received his first taste of war and relief activit-ies. He helped Tientsin's besieged defenders by taking charge of arricade construction and the distribution of food and water. He subsequently worked briefly for a private concern in China. In 1901 he headed back to the United States.

During the early 1900's, Hoover gained international renown for developing mines and managing other industrial projects in at least a dozen countries. From 1901 until 1908 he held a junior partnership in the firm he had earlier worked for in Australia, and from the latter year until 1914 operated his own mining consultant business. By the age of 40 he was a multimillionaire.

Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Hoover, who was then visiting England, at the request of the U.S. Ambassador voluntarily headed the American Relief Committee (1914-15), which helped Americans stranded in Europe by the war. To distribute food, clothing, and medicine to war-ravaged Belgian and French civilians, he directed the Commission for Relief in Belgium (1915-18), and arranged with Allied and German officials to distribute these supplies on both sides of the lines.

When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, President Wilson called Hoover home to manage the Food Administration (1914-19). He increased production and, in order to allocate American food surpluses to Europe, persuaded the public to cut consumption through voluntary rationing, known as `Hooverizing'.

After the fighting ended, Hoover attended the Paris Conference (1919) as an economic adviser to the U.S. delegation, and once again oversaw relief and reconstruction efforts in many nations, at first through official aid programs and later through voluntary agencies. These efforts were notable in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union.

While Hoover was spending much of his time in Europe, in 1919-21, his wife supervised construction of a home near the Stanford campus. He had been appointed to its board of trustees in 1912, and was to maintain a lifelong interest in its affairs. His collection of wartime documents and other materials became the basis of the school's Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace.

Hoover's unselfish services in Europe endeared him to both parties, but in 1919 he committed himself to the Republicans. The next year, at the national convention he received a few votes for the Presidential nomination. He next served as Secretary of Commerce (1921-28) in the Harding and Coolidge administrations.

In 1928, after Coolidge refused to seek renomination, the national convention nominated Hoover for President on the first ballot. Pledging to continue prosperity and enforce prohibition, he competed against Democrat Alfred E. Smith, the first Roman Catholic candidate chosen by a major party. In a decisive victory that carried him into his first public elective office, Hoover carried much of the traditional Democratic South. He was the first Chief Executive born west of the Mississippi and the first elected from California.

Hoover immediately called a special session of Congress to deal with tariff revision and the economic hardships that had been plaguing farmers for a decade. To guard home markets from foreign competition, Congress passed and Hoover unhappily signed the highly protective Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930). Rejecting farm subsidies, instead in 1929 he convinced Congress to establish the Federal Farm Board. It sought to encourage price stabilization through agricultural cooperatives, the purchase by Government corporations of various produce, and the enhancement of market efficiency.

Hoover soon faced a far graver crisis- an economic depression. In 1929 the Wall Street stock market crashed, and the economy quickly collapsed. To prevent further decline, Hoover called on labor to hold down wages and on industry to maintain payrolls as well as production. Along with calling on Congress to balance the federal budget, he urged it to enact a tax cut and make larger allocations for public building programs.

By 1931 the continuance of international economic distress had intensified the situation in the U.S. As a way to ease European ills, Hoover through diplomatic channels arranged for a 1-year moratorium on the payment of reparations and inter-Allied war debts.

A proponent of individualism and self-reliance, oover argued that massive Federal public doles would undermine the country's moral fiber. He believed that relief for the indigent and unemployed should mainly come from volunteer charities and State and local governments. As the crisis worsened, he and Congress undertook a broad Federal program to stimulate business recovery. They established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) to grant loans to financial institutions and businesses, set up a home load bank system, awarded funds to States and localities for relief and public works, authorized the Federal Reserve System to make loans to businesses and industrial concerns, and fostered governmental economy.

Despite these measures, Congress, especially after heavy Democratic gains in 1930, disparaged Hoover's leadership, and many people blamed him personally for the deepening of the depression. He was also criticized for his forceful dispersal of the 1932 `Bonus Army' of unemployed military veterans who encamped in Washington D.C., and demanded immediate payment of compensation for their wartime service.

Foreign affairs captured less public attention during the Hoover era then the domestic. He sent a delegation to discuss arms reduction at the London Naval Conference (1930), and continued to advance disarmament proposals during the remainder of his term. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson denounced Japanese intervention in Manchuria as a flagrant breach of the traditional Open Door policy & various treaties. Mussolini (Italy) and Hitler (Germany) were also ignoring many of the treaties. As President-elect, Hoover journeyed to South America to herald a `Good Neighbor' policy with Latin America. As evidence of this, in office he withdrew U.S. Marines from Nicaragua.

In 1932 Hoover was renominated, but met ignominious defeat at the hands of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. The next year, Hoover retired from the Presidency. From 1933 until 1944, he maintained his Palo Alto home, but after his wife's death in the latter year he permanently lived in New York City, which since 1934 had served as his second residence.

During his long and active retirement, Hoover wrote extensively on history and politics, including his memoirs. President Truman summoned Hoover in 1946 to coordinate post-World War II relief planning. During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, he chaired bipartisan Federal study commissions to improve the efficiency of the Executive Branch. He also participated in several civic organizations, and received numerous awards, medals, and honorary degrees. He died in 1964 at New York City.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in 1882 on a Hudson River estate at Hyde Park New York, that was to be his lifelong permanent home. The second son of James Roosevelt, a lawyer, financier, and railroad executive, Franklin was the only child from his father's second marriage, to Sara Delano. The parents and private tutors provided the youth with almost all his formative education, which was enhanced by frequent travel and some study in Europe, where he learned to speak French and German. He also attended Groton (1896-1900), a prestigious preparatory school in Massachu-setts. He was an excellent student and enjoyed many sports.

Roosevelt won a B.A. degree in history at Harvard in only 3 years (1900-3), even though his extracurricular activities tended to overshadow his classroom accomplish-ments. An admirer of his 5th cousin Theodore Roosevelt, he temporarily abandoned his family's Democratic loyalties and became active in the school's Republican Club. He also participated in football, crew, and glee club; served as managing editor-president of the student news-paper, THE CRIMSON; and was elected as class chairman. After graduation, he stayed on for a year of postgraduate study.

Roosevelt next pursued law at New York City's Columbia University. When he passed his bar examination after 3 years of study, in 1907, he left school without taking a degree. Two years earlier, he had wed (Anna) Eleanor Roosevelt, a distant cousin. Her uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, gave her away. She was to give birth to 1 daughter and 5 sons.

From 1907 until 1910, Franklin practiced with a prominent New York City legal firm. The latter year, he was a delegate to the State Democratic convention and won election to the State senate from his traditionally Republican home district. In 1912 he was reelected, and fought for Woodrow Wilson's Presidential candidacy at the national convention.

In 1913 Wilson appointed Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The following year, the latter lost a bid for nomination to the U.S. Senate. Continuing at his naval post throughout World War I, he proved to be a tireless and efficient administrator.

At the national convention in 1920, Roosevelt was picked as the running mate of Presidential candidate James M. Cox. During the campaign, in which the two strongly advocated the League of Nations, Roosevelt gained national stature, but Republican Warren G. Harding achieved a landslide victory. The next year, Roosevelt entered into a New York City law partnership, and became vice-president of Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland (1921-28).

In 1921, while at the family's vacation home off the Maine coast on Campobello Island, N.B., Canada, Roosevelt was stricken with infantile paralysis. This set off a courageous, lifetime fight to overcome the ravages of the disease. While building up his chest, neck, and arm muscles, he regained partial use of his legs, particularly by swimming periodically in the healing waters at Warm Springs, Georgia, beginning in 1924. In time, he established a foundation there to help other polio victims, and inspired as well as directed the March of Dimes program that eventually funded an effective vaccine.

Meanwhile, encouraged by his wife and associates, Roosevelt had reentered public life. In 1924, he resumed his legal career, and at the Democratic national convention made a dramatic appearance on crutches to place Alfred (`Al') Smith in nomination for the Presidency - though John W. Davis became the candidate.

In 1928 Roosevelt again nominated Smith, who was successful this time and subsequently arranged for his protege to replace him on the New York gubernatorial ticket. Despite a vigorous campaign, Roosevelt narrowly won, but Smith lost the State and the national election to Republican Herbert Hoover. In 1930 Roosevelt was overwhelmingly reelected and served for 3 more years. Although the Republicans controlled the legislature, he gained nationwide recognition for the bold program he pushed through to allay the effects of the depression and to promote social welfare.

After a determined preconvention effort, in 1932 Roos-evelt won the Democratic Presidential nomination on the 4th ballot. Breaking precedent by delivering an acceptance speech at the convention, he pledged a `New Deal', devoted to relief, recovery, and reform. While later touring the Nation, he attacked irresponsible business interests, and advocated a loosely defined and sometimes contradictory pro-gram of unemployment compensation, the end of prohibit-ion, Government spending cuts, tariff reductions, and protection of U.S. industry. President Herbert Hoover, the Republican candidate, argued that Roosevelt's proposals endangered in-dividuals, the basis of American political and economic strength. Nevertheless, the electorate swept Roosevelt into office.

During the 4-month period preceding Roosevelt's inauguration, the depression worsened. Industrial production plummeted; the pace of factory closings accelerated; unemployment soured; breadlines lengthened; and, as depositors panicked, bank failures increased.

To reaffirm public confidence. Roosevelt made huge strides as soon as he assumed office. He immediately summoned Congress into special session. Working together, during the first `100 Days' they passed a mass of legislation, the extent and implications of which have probably never been matched in any other similar brief span of U.S. history. Roosevelt formed a `brain trust' of advisers, who included many ex-professors; and appointed a distinguished Cabinet, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman member of that body.

Seeking to buttress the financial and business struc-ture, Roosevelt at once ordered a 4-day closing of banks to halt depositor panic, cut governmental expenditures, and ab-andoned the gold standard as an inflationary means to pro-vide economic impetus. To calm the public, he began a se-ries of radio `fireside chats' that he was to continue as a means of explaining his programs and gaining public support.

Legislation passed during the `100 Days' was far reaching in scope and significance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) safeguarded bank deposits. The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) provided direct Government loans for mortgages to home owners and farmers. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put thousands of young men to work on conservation projects. The Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) granted funds to States and municipalities for aid to the unemployed. The 21st Amendment was ratified (1933) which repealed prohibition.

Hoping to boost prices for agricultural products, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) paid subsidies to farmers for curtailing production of certain livestock and crops and guaranteed parity prices for them. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) put the Government into the power business in a major way and marked the beginning of intensified regional planning.

The omnibus National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) created the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). Respectively, these agencies declared voluntary business and industrial codes geared toward increasing wages and maintaining prices and reducing unemployment; and employed laborers on newly created construction projects. The NIRA also guaranteed labor's right to organize and bargain collectively.

Once the `100 Days' had passed, during the rest of 1933 and in 1934 legislation slackened, but Congress and the administration devoted considerable effort to amending and refining earlier bills.

The New Deal did not win the favor of all the populace, particularly businessmen and bankers. Especially concerned with what they considered to be excessive governmental expenditures and the effects of inflation, they and other critics charged that Roosevelt's programs were `socialistic' and would endanger capitalism and democracy. The salutary effects of the New Deal were also questioned. Yet in 1934, indicative of the support of much of the electorate and contrary to tradition, the Democrats, the party in power, gained rather than lost seats in the midterm elections.

During 1935, in the `2nd New Deal', another flurry of legislation was enacted. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) (after 1939 the Works Projects Administration), a program similar to the Public Works Administration (PWA), provided Federal jobs mainly for laborers, but also for artists, writers, musicians, and actors. The allied National Youth Administration (NYA) provided students and other youths with employment.

The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) furnished electricity to rural areas not adequately served by private utilities. And the National Relations Act (NLRA), which created a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), assured the protection of labor's rights. The Social Security Act primarily set up a system of cooperative Federal-State unemployment compensation and a Federal pro-gram of old-age and survivors' benefits. In 1935 Roosevelt also obtained legislation increasing taxes on corporate and personal incomes, especially those in the higher brackets.

In 1936 Roosevelt easily defeated Republican Alfred M. Landon, and by lesser margins would beat Republican candidate Wendel L. Wilkie in 1940 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1944. The only President known to a generation of young Americans, Roosevelt shattered the 2-term tradition, being elected to 4 terms and serving an unprecedented tenure of more than 12 years. Meantime, in 1935 and 1936, the Supreme Court had declared some key New Deal legislation unconstitutional by narrow margins.

Early in 1937 Roosevelt proposed to add new justices, but many people contended this was an attempt to `pack' the Court and undermine the separation of powers. Roosevelt met his first major legislative defeat on this proposal, but before long the Supreme Court began to render decisions more favorable to his legislation.

In 1938 Roosevelt won additional measures, such as higher farm price subsidies, and the Fair Labor Standards Act to set minimum wages, limit hours, and ban child labor in production of interstate goods. But by 1939, after Republicans and conservative Democrats made gains in the 1938 elections, the burst of legislation had subsided. The ills of the depression did not fully abate until the Nation mobilized for World War II.

In foreign policy, Roosevelt made one major shift, in 1933, by granting diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. He also amplified the `Good Neighbor' policy Hoover had initiated to restore solidarity in the Western Hemisphere. Under this new approach, the concept expressed in the Monroe Doctrine and its Roosevelt (Theodore) Corollary was modified to one of American cooperation with Latin American nations instead of intervention in their affairs. Accordingly, Roosevelt completed the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Haiti. He also applied a new spirit of amity in diplomatic negotiations, which included numerous reciprocal trade agreements. By treaty, he renounced the right of intervention in Cuba and Panama.

Elsewhere on the globe, menacing forces were on the rise. During the late 1930's, the accelerating expansionism of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and Africa, continuation of Japanese warfare against China, and the Axis alliance formed by Germany, Italy, and Japan, presaged the outbreak of World War II, which began in 1939.

As the conflict loomed on the horizon and then one country after another fell under Axis control, Roosevelt pursued defensive rearmament, despite a considerable body of isolationist sentiment in the Nation. He followed a course of official neutrality, though he obtained legislation and negotiated treaties as well as other agreements that strengthened America's defensive posture and aided the anti-Fascist countries, with whose cause he and most Americans sympathized. After the collapse of France in 1940 and the onset of the Nazi effort against Great Britain, in early 1941 Roosevelt launched an extensive Lend-Lease program on behalf of the Allies, which included Britain, Free France, China, and the Soviet Union. In Aug. 1941, the Atlantic Charter was signed with Prime Minister Churchill enunciating an 8-point statement for peace.

Within days of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. declared war on the Axis powers and began an all-out global effort to defeat them. Roosevelt mobilized the Nation, defined war aims, and from the wartime alliance strove to forge a lasting peace through creation of a United Nations organization. At home, in 1941 he created a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to prevent racial discrimination in defense projects, and supported the Bretton Woods meeting for international Monetary and Financial affairs.

Roosevelt was cheered as the tide of war shifted decisively in favor of the Allies. He conferred with other Allied heads of state, stressed the need for unconditional surrender. He met with Churchill and Stalin at Teheran (1943) and again at Yalta in 1945 to discuss the objectives of the war and post-war conditions. Unhappily he did not witness the final victory. Only weeks before the war ended in Europe, he died in April 1945 at his Warm Springs retreat.

Born in 1884 at Lamar, Missouri, Truman was the eldest of 3 children. In 1890 his father, a farmer and livestock dealer, moved his family from his father-in-law's farm at Grandview to the first of a series of residences in nearby Independence. From his earliest public school days, Truman wore thick eyeglasses, which restricted his participation in athletics. As a consequence, he learned to play the piano and became an avid reader, acquiring a lifelong interest in history and biography.

Financial problems kept Truman out of college, and his poor eyesight caused West Point to reject him. From 1901, when he graduated from high school, until 1906, mainly in Kansas City, he held a variety of clerical jobs: railroad timekeeping, newspaper mailroom worker, bank clerk, and bookkeeper.

In 1906 Truman, at the request of his father who was suffering economic difficulties, rejoined him at Grandview, where the family had returned 3 years earlier, and helped him work the farm. Harry continued to operate it after his father died in 1914.

Truman had joined the National Guard in 1905. After the U.S. entry into World War I, in 1917, he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the field artillery and served with distinction in France. He took part in the Vosges, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne campaigns.

Mustered out as a major in 1919, Truman returned to Independence and married Elizabeth V. (`Bess') Wallace, his childhood sweetheart. They moved into his widowed mother-in-law's home, which they were to maintain as their permanent residence for the rest of their married lives. Bess was to bear one daughter Margaret (Mary).

Just after his discharge, Truman and an Army friend opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, but it failed in 1922. Truman, however, avoided bankruptcy and insisted on paying off his debts.

Backed by fellow war veterans and endorsed by local politician Thomas J. Pendergast, Truman was elected as judge for the eastern district of Jackson County (1922-24), a post similar to that of county commissioner. He failed to win reelection partly because of Ku Klux Klan opposition. Meanwhile, in 1923-25, he had attended night classes at Kansas City Law School, but never graduated. From 1924 until 1926 he was a partner in a savings and loan association and also sold memberships for the Automobile Club of Missouri.

During the next 8 years, Truman held two 4-year terms as presiding judge of the Jackson County Court, where he earned repute for his honest and efficient administration. In 1934, endorsed by Pendergast, he won a U.S. Senate seat as a Democrat. Despite the exposure of corruption in the Pendergast organization, in 1940 Truman was re-elected, though narrowly, partially on the strength of his personal integrity and loyalty to President Roosevelt's `New Deal'. During Truman's second Senate term, his chairing of an investigation of war profiteering, military expenditures, and defense production brought him national recognition.

Following an intraparty fight in 1944 Truman replaced Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate. As Vice President after January 1945, Truman fulfilled mostly ceremonial duties and rarely enjoyed the opportunity to discuss crucial national matters with the President, who was away from the Capital much of the time or busily engaged in the war effort. When Roosevelt died in April, Truman was confronted with a series of major decisions that required extensive briefings on military strategy and peacemaking measures.

Ironically, it was in foreign affairs, the area where Truman enjoyed the least pre-Presidential experience, that he made an outstanding mark. V-E Day, on May 8, 1945, marked the end of fighting in Europe. Less than 2 months later, Truman witnessed the signing of the United Nations charter in San Francisco. That summer, he also met with Britain's Winston S. Churchill and Clement R. Attlee as well as the Soviet Union's Joseph V. Stalin at the Potsdam (Germany) Conference. Stalin's recalcitrance on postwar issues there helped lay the basis of the future Cold War.

During this meeting, Truman received a message that reported a secret U.S. test explosion of the first atomic bomb. Agreeing with his advisers that it would obviate the need for a long and bloody invasion of Japan to force her to surrender, he authorized its use. Within a matter of days following destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, World War II ended, on August 4, 1945 (V-J Day).

By 1947 the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which grew out of conflicts and misunderstandings that followed W.W.II, had begun. The `Truman Doctrine' advocated the containment of Communism through collective security alliances and direct military and economic aid to friendly nations.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), organized in 1949 with Truman's strong backing, solidified the military defense of Western Europe. Two years earlier, to counter Soviet threats to Turkey and Communist guerrilla activity in Greece, he had convinced Congress to extend aid to both countries. Later that same year, he backed Secretary of State George C. Marshall's imaginative and massive program (Marshall Plan) to underwrite the economic rebuilding of Western Europe. Truman's `Point Four' program was a multibillion dollar economic and technical aid program for developing nations.

Truman also faced 2 major military confrontations. He directed a massive airlift (1948-49) that broke a Russian blockade of West Berlin. In 1950 Communist North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea. Truman immediately undertook to thwart the attack. The United Nations, during a Russian boycott of its meetings, voted to join the United States in defending South Korea. Insisting on a limited police action to contain aggression but also seeking to prevent a broader war with China and possibily even the Soviet Union, in 1951 Truman removed Gen. Douglas MacArthur as military commander for disagreeing with this strategy. By the end of Truman's administration, the war had stalemated near the old demarcation line, but no permanent peace had been reached.

As early as 1946, Truman had proposed international control of atomic energy and U.N. supervision of bomb stockpiles. Inside of 3 years, the Russians had tested a nuclear device. The President then ordered creation of the more powerful hydrogen bomb, which was first exploded in 1952

Domestically, Truman quickly put his own stamp on Rooseveltian policies. Within a few months of his inauguration in 1945, he appointed 6 new Cabinet members. And, that fall, he initiated his `Fair Deal' program. Although it retained Roosevelt's social-welfare orientation, it emphasized the conversion of the economy from a wartime to peacetime basis- one of Truman's major domestic problems.

Toward that end, in 1946 Truman signed a bill stating the Government's goal of `full employment' and creating a Council of Economic Advisers, which would counsel the President on economic matters and issue an annual economic report. That same year, he backed establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission, whose mission was the peaceful development of nuclear energy. Both business and labor blocked his efforts to continue anti-inflationary wartime price controls.

During a wave of strikes in 1946, though sympathetic to the cause of labor, Truman boldly intervened in railroad and coal mining disputes as he was also to do in 1952 during a steel strike. On the other hand, after the 1946 midterm congressional elections gave control of both Houses to the Republicans for the first time since 1930, Congress overrode Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartly Act, which restricted union powers.

In his `whistle-stop' campaign for reelection in 1948 against Republican Thomas E. Dewey, Truman doggedly stumped against the `inaction' of the 80th Congress. Upsetting the predictions of most pollsters and many members of his own party of his landslide defeat, he won the election, though by only a slight margin in severl key States, and control of Congress. `Dixiecrat' J. Strom Thurmond, who reflected southern opposition to Truman's civil-rights stance, and Progressive Henry A. Wallace drew just enough votes to deprive Truman of a popular majority.

Yet Congress still ignored or rejected many of Truman's `Fair Deal' recommendations, which included those to guarantee civil rights through a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee and to grant Federal funds for education and national health insurance.

Truman also issued an Executive order decreeing the end of segregation and racial discrimination in the Armed Forces, and encouraged or supported congressional appropriations or programs in the following areas: increase of the minimum wage, slum clearance, public housing, conservation, expansion of Social Security, and continuation of farm price supports. Furthermore, he supervised various governmental reorganizations, including those recommended by the Hoover Commission, and unification of the various armed services under a new Department of Defense.

In 1950 Truman escaped assassination when 2 Puerto Rican nationalists stormed Blair House, across from the White House, where he and his family were residing during the mansion's rehabilitation. He was spared injury, but guard Leslie Coffelt died and 2 others were wounded; one of the attackers died, and the other was wounded. Truman subsequently commuted the latter's death sentence to life imprisonment.

Following a series of trials of Communists and their sympathizers, in 1950 Congress passed the anti-Communist McCarran Internal Security Act. Truman vetoed it on the grounds that existing legislation was adequate for the purpose, but the measure passed. About the same time, Senator, Joseph R. McCarthy accused the State Department and other bureaus of harboring a number of alleged Communists or their supporters, among whom he also included former Secretary of State Marshall. Truman and other leading Americans hotly contested these charges, but they neverthless became campaign issues in 1952.

Truman was also criticized for the existence of corruption and maladministration among his appointees in several executive agencies and on the White House staff. Although he initially came to their defense, he discharged many of them and took other corrective measures.

In 1952 Truman decided against seeking another term, and backed the Democratic convention's choice, Adlai E. Stevenson. Retiring to Independence, Truman assumed the role of elder statesman, continued to participate in party affairs, wrote his memoirs, and helped establish the Truman Presidential Library. He died in 1972. His widow and married daughter survived him.

Called Thomas Hart Benton "The Best Damned painter in America," and his mural graces the Truman library. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in 1890 at Denison, Texas. The next year, his family, in which he was the third of 7 sons, moved to Abilene, Kansas. There, his father worked as a mechanic in a creamery. The youth's pacifistic and devout parents provided him with strong religious training. His traditional education was received in a public school, from which he graduated at the age of 19. He was an average student, and played football and baseball.

For the next 3 years, Eisenhower worked in the creamery with his father. Encouraged by a friend, he applied for admittance to both military academies, but the Navy rejected him for being barely overage. In 1911 he accepted a nomination to West Point, where he excelled academically and played on the football team until he broke his knee. He graduated in 1915 among the top third of his class.

While posted as a second lieutenant at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX, Eisenhower met Mary G. (`Mamie') Doud of Denver. They married in 1916. She was to bear 2 sons, the first of whom died as an infant.

Eisenhower remained in the U.S. during W.W.I, and established as well as commanded the tank training center at Camp Colt, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. During the peacetime, he gained a reputation for his staff and planning work and held a series of overseas and stateside assignments, including service under Gens. Pershing and MacArthur. Eisenhower also graduated from the Command and General Staff School and Army War College. In 1941 he bolstered his career when he helped engineer a victory in the Louisiana war games, and achieved the temporary rank of brigadier general.

In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered WW II, Gen. George C. Marshall named Eisenhower as Assistant Chief of Staff. In this position, he earned respect for his strategic and organizational talents. Later the same year, he was chosen to command the European Theater of Operations. His direction of the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy brought him international fame.

In late 1943 Eisenhower was appointed the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Inspiring Allied unity, he led the D-Day invasion of France (June 6, 1944). Late that year, he was awarded the newly created rank of General of the Army. After Germany surrendered, in 1945 Eisenhower returned to the U.S. to serve as Army Chief of Staff. During the next 3 years, he supervised demobilization and the integration of his branch of the service into the newly formed Department of Defense.

Popularly known by his high school nickname of `Ike' and beloved for his distinctive grin, Eisenhower became a national hero. Publication of his military memoirs, CRUSADE IN EUROPE (1948), added to his public recognition. That same year, discouraging Presidential draft movements by both major parties, he left the Army and took over the presidency of Columbia University. Upon President Truman's request, late in 1950 he took a leave of absence and returned to active duty to command the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which had been formed the year before.

In 1952, deciding to cast his lot with the Republicans, Ike returned to the U.S. and won nomination on the first ballot. His running mate was Richard. M. Nixon. Winning the first national G.O.P. victory in 24 years, Ike easily defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. Four years later, though in the interim Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack and an ileitis operation, he beat Stevenson by an even wider margin. Late in 1957, Ike was temporarily hospitalized with a mild stroke.

Eisenhower labeled his domestic program as `Dynamic Conservatism' or `Modern Republicanism'. Working with majority Democratic Congresses except for the first 2 years, he emphasized a balanced budget, but favored expansion of social-welfare legislation while also encouraging the decentralization of Federal projects through cooperation with business and State and local governments.

Eisenhower signed bills that broadened Social Security coverage and increased the minimum wage; oversaw an agreement with Canada to construct the St. Lawrence Seaway (completed in 1959),supported Federal aid for local health assistance, school construction, and educational programs, particularly in science; pushed the massive funding of a new system of interstate highways; established a `soil bank', which paid farmers to withdraw lands from production in the interest of maintaining food prices and conserving agricultural resources; distributed farm surpluses at home and abroad in the form of school lunches and foreign aid; hailed a labor-relations act that required management and union leaders to report dealings affecting the public and rank-and-file workers; and took various steps to relieve the recessions of 1954 and 1957-58.

On the other hand, Eisenhower sought to minimize Government activity. His administration lowered individual and corporate taxes, abolished the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, stressed reduction of the national budget, rejected proposals for public utility dam projects, and welcomed the admittance of Alaska and Hawaii as States.

After the school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court in 1954, Eisenhower enforced specific judicial orders in this field, notably in Little Rock, Arkansas. He deployed Federal troops there in 1957 to insure enrollment of blacks at a local high school. That same year, he approved formation of a Civil Rights Commission as part of the first significant Federal legislation in this area in more than 8 decades. In 1960 he sponsored another bill providing voting registration protection for blacks. Finally, he furthered the elimination of segregation in the Armed Forces.

Foreign affairs, which were administered by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles until 1959, attracted most of Ike's attention. While maintaining a strong defensive military posture, he sought to mitigate Cold War tensions. In 1953, fulfilling a campaign promise, he concluded an armistice ending the Korean conflict. The following year, the U.S. joined South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a collective security arrangement among anti-Communist governments.

Stalin's death in 1953 and Eisenhower's initiatives led to a gradual easing of East-West tensions. The new Russian leaders agreed with the 3 other occupying powers (France, Great Britain, and the U.S.) to a treaty creating an independent Austria, and spoke of `Peaceful Co-existence' between capitalism and Communism. Because of growing U.S. and Russian nuclear capability, the search for peace became ever more urgent.

Throughout Eisenhower's tenure, he tried to obtain Soviet agreement to limit nuclear arms and halt their testing. In 1953 he proposed to the United Nations `Atoms for Peace', a program for the peaceful use of atomic energy in the developing countries. This proposal eventually led to creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Eisenhower met in 1955 with French, British, and Russian heads of state in a summit conference at Geneva, Switzerland- the first since Potsdam. Although the Soviets rejected his `Open Skies' disarmament proposal for the interchange of military installation blueprints and mutual rights of aerial reconnaissance and inspection, the conference briefly relaxed relations between Russia and the Free World.

The `Spirit of Geneva' soon evaporated, however. In 1956 the Russians put down a revolt in Hungary, and the U.S. offered the refugees asylum. In the fall of 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first earth satellite. In response, Ike created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1958), expanded U.S. military might, and increased foreign aid.

Meanwhile, late in 1956, Eisenhower had joined the Soviet Union and the United Nations in criticizing the joint French, British and Israeli attack on Egypt to force it to reopen the Suez Canal. The next year, he promulgated the `Eisenhower Doctrine' which committed the U.S. to help Middle Eastern countries resist Communism. Under this doctrine, in 1958 U.S. forces briefly intervened in Lebanon at the request of its President. That same year, Ike, fulfilling a 1954 commitment to Nationalist China, backed her resistance to Chinese Communist bombardment of the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.

Seeking further detente through personal diplomacy, Eisenhower invited Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev to tour the U.S. During his visit (1959), Ike discussed various issues with him at Camp David, Md.

But international hostility resumed in many parts of the world. In 1960, after an American U-2 reconnaissance jet was shot down inside Russia, Khrushchev abruptly ended a Paris summit meeting and cancelled Eisenhower's planned trip to his country. That same year, grave tensions arose on 3 continents. Conflict between political factions in Laos flared up; in the Congo (present Zaire) secessionist and revolutionary elements emerged just after independence was achieved; and disagreements between the U.S. and Cuba, which allied more and more closely with the Soviet bloc, led to a rupture in diplomatic relations.

Out of office in 1961 and in retirement at his Gettysburg farm, Eisenhower advised his successors, wrote his memoirs, and handled private business matters. He died in 1969 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, DC and is survived by his widow and son.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in 1917 at Brookline, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb. He was the second child and second son of 9 children. Both parents were well-educated members of prominent, prosperous, and politically active Irish-American families. The father, Joseph P., was to build a multi-million dollar fortune in business and finance, as well as serve as Franklin D. Roosevelt's chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934-35) and Ambassador to Great Britain (1937-40).

In 1927, by which time Joseph had achieved considerable wealth, the family moved to the New York City area. He soon acquired a winter home at Palm Beach, Fla., and a summer retreat at Hyannis Port, MA. Young Kennedy received most of his early education at private schools. After graduation from Choate (1931-35), a prestigious college preparatory institution in Wallingford, Conn., he decided to enroll at Princeton University. But, while studying for the summer at the London School of Economics in England, he was stricken with jaundice. This delayed for a few weeks his entry at Princeton. During the winter, his illness recurred, and he was forced to leave school.

Kennedy entered Harvard University in 1936. During the second half of his junior year, he joined his Ambassador-father in England and traveled around Europe. In 1940 he took his B.S. degree from Harvard with honors in political science. His senior thesis, on the appeasement of Hitler, publish under the title of WHY ENGLAND SLEPT, became a bestseller. Later that same year, he enrolled in Stanford (CA) University Business School, but only attended for 6 months, after which he toured South America.

During the fall of 1941, Kennedy was appointed as an ensign in the Navy and assigned to Washington, DC, and then to Charleston, SC. Just after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December, his request for sea duty was granted. After appropriate training in Rhode Island, in 1943, as a lieutenant (jg), he commanded a motor-torpedo patrol boat (PT-109) in the Solomon Islands region of the South Pacific. A Japanese destroyer rammed and sank his craft. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. Finishing his military career in hospitals and as a training instructor, he was discharged early in 1945 with the rank of lieutenant.

Later that same year, employed by the Hearst newspapers, Kennedy reported on the formation of the United Nations at San Francisco, the Potsdam Conference, and the British elections. This activity whetted his interest in politics.

In 1946, after receiving a substantial plurality in the Democratic primary, he was elected to the U.S.House of Represen- tatives from a Massachusetts district that included parts of Boston. In 1948 and 1950 he easily won reelection. Two years later, following a highly organized and energetic campaign, he defeated incumbent U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., though the Republican Presidential ticket carried the State.

The next year, Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. he was to bear 1 daughter, Caroline B., and 2 sons, John F.,Jr., and Patrick B., the latter of whom died shortly after birth.

While convalescing from 2 critical spinal operations in 1954-55, Kennedy wrote PROFILES IN COURAGE (1956), a critic-al study of 8 U.S. Senators who adhered to principle above political popularity. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.

In 1956 Kennedy narrowly lost a bid for the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination. Two years later, he was overwhelmingly reelected to the Senate. Before long, he began to campaign for the Presidency. After carrying several early State primaries, he won decisively in West Virginia. The national convention selected him on the first ballot. His major rival, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, accepted the Vice-Presidential nomination.

After a campaign that featured 4 nationally televised debates between Kennedy and the Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon (a historical first), Kennedy achieved an extremely narrow victory in the general election. Republican claims of fraudulent returns in Texas and Illinois were not pressed.

Kennedy exerted boldness in foreign affairs, which were marked during his administration by sharp intensification of the Cold War. Soon after his inauguration in 1961, he allowed a force of anti-Communist Cuban exiles, who had been equipped and trained with U.S. assistance, to invade their homeland at the Bay of Pigs. This attempt to overthrow Premier Fidel Castro failed dismally, and Kennedy publicly accepted responsibility.

That same year, the President launched the Peace Corps and his hemispheric Alliance for Progress to aid developing nations. He signed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 sett-ing up the Agency for International Development (AID). He also held talks on a variety of topics with Soviet Premier Khrushchev in Vienna, but, especially in the wake of the Cu-ban affair, these were ineffective. International rapport further declined when East Germany constructed a wall to isolate West Berlin from the Communist or eastern sector. In retaliation, Kennedy augmented U.S. forces in Europe, and 2 years later delivered his `Ich bin ein Berliner' speech at the wall. Meanwhile, both Russia and the U.S. had enlarged their military budgets and resumed nuclear testing.

Responding to pro-communist revolutionary activity in Southeast Asia, in 1962 Kennedy helped arrange a negotiated settlement of the long standing political turmoil in Laos. That same year, he began increasing the military advisers President Eisenhower had sent to South Viet Nam with special forces.

In October 1962 a major crisis arose over Cuba. Kennedy obtained aerial reconnaissance photographs proving that the Soviet Union had placed intermediate-range missiles there capable of striking the U.S. mainland. In an emergen-cy telecast to the Nation, Kennedy stated that the U.S.Navy would quarantine arms shipments to the island until the off-ensive weapons were with- drawn. Nuclear war seemed immin-ent, but the confrontation ended when Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles.

Kennedy soon sought new understanding in Russian-American relations. In 1963 he signed the first arms-con-trol treaty of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and Great Britain; it banned aboveground nuclear testing. He also ag-reed to the installation of a `hot line' for instant commu-nication between the White House and the Kremlin, and ap-proved the sale of surplus wheat to Russia.

Kennedy's `New Frontier' domestic program was only partially successful in Congress, which passed legislation in the fields of reciprocal international trade, aid to higher education, urban renewal, a higher minimum wage, re-lief of economically distressed areas, liberalization of So-cial Security procedures and benefits, grants to States for community mental health centers, and improvement of water quality. Civil-rights and tax-reduction measures he rec-ommended were enacted after his death. Congress rejected his proposals for a Cabinet-level Department of Urban Aff-airs, medical care for the aged, general Federal assistance for public schools, and stronger regulation of farm production.

But Kennedy made notable gains in civil rights. He appointed many blacks to Federal posts, legally ended religious and racial discrimination in housing built or purchased with Federal funds; strengthened equal job opportunity in Government contract work; and backed the extensive program of his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, for the registration of black voters.

To foster school integration, Kennedy sent U.S. marsh-als and troops to Oxford, Miss., to insure enrollment of the University of Mississippi's first black student, James H. Meredith. He also dispatched Federal forces to the Univers-ity of Alabama for similar purposes. And he endorsed Martin Luther King, Jr.'s massive civil-rights march on Washington, DC (1963).

Kennedy proved to be forceful in other areas, too. Soviet Major Uri Gagarin achieved the distinction of being the first to orbit the earth before the U.S. suborbital space flight with Alan B. Shepard in 1961. Kennedy, greatly concerned over the Russian success, imaginatively estab-lished as a national goal the landing of a man on the moon by the end of the decade. U.S. astronaut John Glenn ach-ieved orbit in 1962, Mariner II examined Venus, communica-tions satellites Syncom I & Telstar II, were launched. (The success of the moon landing took place after his death.)

In 1962 Kennedy personally intervened to stop proposed steel price increases, which he feared would be inflationay. During the fall of 1963, he visited various areas of the Na-tion to build support for administration programs and his re-election. While touring Texas, on November 22, 1963, to the shock of the world, he was shot from ambush as his mo-torcade passed through downtown Dallas, TX. He never re-gained consciousness. His widow, daughter, and son survived him.

Richard Milhous Nixon was born in 1913 at Yorba Linda, California. Reared by industrious Quaker parents, he was the second of 5 sons, 2 of whom died at early ages. His father, who had worked at various jobs, earned a modest income by raising citrus crops. In 1922 the family moved to nearby Whittier. There, the senior Nixon, aided by his sons, operated a gas station-grocery.

Richard early showed interest in public speaking and drama, and took piano and violin lessons. He was a good student; participated in school debates, athletics, and politics; and played in the orchestra. In 1930 the youth graduated from Whittier Union High. In the fall, he entered Whittier College, a Quaker institution, but worked part time in his father's business to help finance his education. He majored in history, compiled an excellent academic record, was a member of the football squad, excelled in debating, and won the presidency of the student body. Ranking second in his class, in 1934 he received a B.A. degree.

That same year, Nixon won a scholarship to Duke University Law School, in Durham, N.C. He was elected as president of the student bar association, and graduated with honors in 1937.

Returned to Whittier, later in the year Nixon was admitted to the bar and began practicing with a local firm. In 1938 he registered as a Republican, and 2 years later supported Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. By 1941 Nixon had become assistant city attorney, a trustee of Whittier College, and president of 2 of his college alumni organizations. He also found time to organize a company that sought to freeze and market fresh orange juice, but despite his energetic management the business failed after 18 months. While acting in an amateur theater group, he met (Thelma C.) Patricia (`Pat') Ryan, a high school business teacher. They married in 1940, and were to raise 2 daughters.

In 1942, not long after the outbreak of World War II, Nixon moved to Washington, DC to work for the tire-rationing section of the Office of Price Administration. That summer, though his religion made him eligible for conscientious-objector status, he enlisted in the Navy and was commissioned as a lieutenant (jg). He held a variety of assignments, including those in supply and legal services. The highlight of these years, during which he attained the rank of lieutenant commander, was a 14-month tour of duty in the Pacific.

Back home from the war, in 1946 Nixon ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, and in a hard-fought campaign defeated a powerful Democratic opponent who had held office for a decade. During his two terms, Nixon served on the Committee on Education and Labor, where he helped draft the Taft-Hartley Labor Relations Act of (1947); and won recognition as an anti-Communist crusader on the Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1950, after another bitter election battle, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate by a wide margin.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican candidate for Presi-dent in 1952, chose Nixon as his running mate. During the campaign, Nixon was accused of using political contributions for personal purposes, but his televised `Checkers' speech convinced Eisenhower and most citizens of his innocence. Inaugurated to the first of 2 terms as Vice President at the age of 40, Nixon was the second youngest man ever to hold the office.

When President Eisenhower was hospitalized on several occasions, Nixon chaired meetings of the Cabinet and National Security Council. He also represented the U.S. on goodwill trips to Latin America, the Soviet Union, and other places. In 1960 his party's national convention picked him to succeed Eisenhower, but in the first defeat of his political career he lost the general election to Democrat John F. Kennedy by a narrow margin.

The following year, Nixon moved back to California. Not long thereafter his SIX CRISES, which detailed decisive events in his career, was published. In 1962 he lost a bid for the governorship of his native State. The next year, he relocated to New York City and joined a distinguished law firm. Still campaigning for Republican causes, he remained a party leader, though he did not actively seek the Presidential nomination in 1964.

Four years later though, after being victorious in various primaries. Nixon was again nominated. He chose as his running mate Spiro T. Agnew, Governor of Maryland. Nixon narrowly defeated Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey and independent candidate George C. Wallace. Running for reelection in 1972 against Democratic Senator George McGovern, Nixon won the largest number of popular votes in the Nation's history to that date.

Domestically, Nixon advocated a more powerful role for local government in his `New Federalism'. His revenue-shar-ing system allocated a greater share of Federal funds to States and cities. Confronting balance of payments defic-its in international trade and high rates of inflation, he instituted mandatory wage and price controls; entered into international monetary negotiations; devalued the dol-lar; and took steps to counter the energy crisis, which intensif-ied late in 1973 when Arab nations placed an embargo on oil.

Nixon also declared a `war' against crime and narcot-ics, opposed compulsory busing to desegregate schools, made 4 appointments to the Supreme Court, and ended the military draft while converting the armed services to an all-volunt-eer basis. A spectacular event early in his administration was the landing of American astronauts on the moon.

Aided by his chief international affairs adviser and later Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Nixon pursued a vigorous foreign policy. In Viet Nam he gradually reduced U.S. commitments while seeking to `Vietnamize' the conflict. In conjunction with the Saigon government of South Viet Nam, he continued aerial and naval assaults on the North Vietnam-ese and their Indochinese allies and made incursions against their strongholds in Cambodia and Laos. He finally succeed-ed in negotiating a cease fire, disengaging U.S. forces and arranging for the release of American prisoners-of-war held by North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong. These latter actions playing an important part in ending large-scale demonstra-tions in the U.S. against participation in the war.

Outstanding among Nixon's travels to many parts of the world was his historic journey in 1972 to the People's Republic of China, the first high-level contact between the 2 nations in decades. He was the first President to visit that country while in office. The result was establishment of limited diplomatic contact between the 2 nations and creation of a spirit of amity. Later that same year and in 1974, the President traveled to the Soviet Union, where in a spirit of detente he signed a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons and discussed such other matters as cooperation in outer space, trade, and international affairs. In the Middle East, which he toured in 1974, he helped reduce tensions and the associated threat of world conflict.

Nixon's tenure was cut short by a series of scandals. These began with press revelations of political espionage involving certain members of his own special reelection committee. During June 1972 their agents had broken into the offices of the national committee of the Democratic Party at Washington's Water- gate office building. As time went on, the `Watergate Affair' came to be associated with a wide variety of questionable activities on the part of the President and some of his Cabinet members, key aids, and campaign advisers. Congressional investigations and judicial proceedings resulted in the conviction of a number of them.

In a separate matter, in October 1973 Vice President Agnew resigned, after pleading `no contest' to tax fraud. Utilizing the untried procedures of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, Nixon nominated and Congress confirmed the appointment of Gerald R. Ford to the Vice-Presidency.

One of the major discoveries made during the televised hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Cam-paign Activities was the existence of a tape-recording sys-tem in the White House. Ultimately, in one of the gravest constitutional crises in our history, the Supreme Court unanimously overruled Nixon's assertion of executive privilege to resist the subpoenas of Watergate prosecutors and ordered him to produce tapes and documents relevant to court proceedings.

Late in July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee publicly debated over television the charges against the President in preparation for full House impeachment. The committee finally recommended 3 articles: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.

Under pressure from his own legal counsel, on August 5, 1974, Nixon surrendered 3 transcripts of conversations recorded in the White House a few days after the Watergate break-in. The implications of Nixon's involvement quickly eroded his remaining congressional support, and Republican leaders urged that he step down. On August 9, 1974, stating that he wished to spare the Nation further stress, Nixon resigned (the first President to do so) and retired to his home in San Clemente. He subsequently was given a full Presidential pardon by Ford.

Ford was born in 1913 at Omaha, Nebraska. He was christened Leslie L. King, Jr. after his father, a wool dealer. About 2 years later, his parents divorced. His mother, Dorothy Gardner, took the infant to her family home in Grande Rapids, Mich. The following year, she remarried. Her new husband, Gerald R. Ford, a paint salesman, adopted the child and gave him his own name. Along with 3 younger half-brothers, Ford, Jr., learned the value of hard work and community involvement.

Ford studied at public primary and secondary schools. At South High, he starred in football as center and team captain. By 1929 his stepfather had organized a small paint- manufacturing company, where Gerald worked during vacations. For 3 years while in high school, he was employed part time in a restaurant.

After graduation in 1931, Ford enrolled at the Univers-ity of Michigan and concentrated in economics. Working year round to help support himself, he held such jobs as busboy at the university hospital and dishwasher in a fraternity house. Despite this schedule and the attainment of a 'B' av-erage, he also managed to play football and was backup cen-ter on the school's national championship teams of 1932 and 33. The next year, he made the first squad and was named as the team's 'Most Valuable Player'. In 1935 he took part in the College All-Star Game. That same year, he won his B.A. degree. Rejecting bids to play professional football, Ford joined the athletic staff at Yale University. While serving as an assistant football and boxing coach, he attended law school, where he ranked in the top third of his class.

During the summer of 1936, he worked as a seasonal ran-ger at Yellowstone National Park. In 1941 he was awarded an LL.B. degree. Before the year was out, Ford gained admit-tance to the Michigan bar and began practicing at Grand Rapids.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Navy as an ensign. He spent a substantial part of his tour of duty as an operations officer on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. MONTEREY in the Pacific. Early in 1946 he was separated as a lieutenant commander.

Returning to Grand Rapids, Ford resumed his law career. His participation in civic organizations earned him 2 major awards for community service. In 1948 he married Elizabeth Bloomer Warren, a department-store fashion coordinator. They were to have 3 sons and 1 daughter.

Meanwhile, Ford's stepfather, a local Republican lead-er, and Michigan's Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, nationally known spokesman for a bipartisan internationalist foreign policy, had encouraged Ford in 1948 to challenge the district's incumbent U.S. Representative, an isolationist. After winning the Republican primary in a sweeping upset, Ford easily carried the general election.

In 12 subsequent bids for the same office, Ford regularly obtained more than 60% of the vote. During the 25 years of service in the House of Representatives (1949-73), the last 8 years of which he functioned as Minority Leader, he advanced Republican policies, figured prominently in party affairs, played a key role on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and aspired to the House speakership. As a member of the Warren Commission, he helped investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

During the autumn of 1973, in the first application of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, President Nixon nominated Ford as Vice President to replace Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned. After extensive hearings, both branches of Congress overwhelmingly confirmed the appointment.

On August 9, 1974, Nixon left office and Ford was in-augurated as the 38th President. One of his first actions, designed to contribute to national reconciliation in the wake of Watergate, was the pardon of his predecessor. Ford also nominated former New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller as his Vice President.

Ford's major domestic problem was the economy. Ailing since 1973, it had been weakened by soaring inflation, mounting unemployment, and a worsening energy crisis. Ford first focused on inflation. But, by the end of 1974, the unemployment rate had become critical and demanded his primary attention. From then on, his proposals met consi- derable opposition from the Democratic controlled Congress - despite his long service there and his personal popularity among its members.

Neither that body nor the President, who held fundamentally different economic philosophies, was able to forge anti-recession policies acceptable to the other. Ford, stressing economic restraint by the Government, favored indirect stimulation of the private business-industrial sector by such incentives as accelerated tax writeoffs for plant expansion in high unemployment areas. For this reason, he vetoed or threatened to veto a series of emergency job and public-works projects that Congress passed. On the other hand, Congress supported few of his legislative initiatives.

Nevertheless, Ford's veto power did help him exact compromises on several key issues, including emergency unemployment programs, housing subsidies, and energy policy. He also managed to obtain a congressional ceiling on Federal expenditures in exchange for his approval of an economic-stimulus bill authorizing income-tax reductions.

Ford's fiscal conservatism was further demonstrated by his refusal to sign legislation extending special monetary aid to financially troubled New York City until it and the State took more substantive remedial steps of their own.

In the area of energy, Ford espoused a policy of mark-etplace pricing and increasing use of alternative energy sources, especially nuclear power. Congress rejected his proposals to lift controls on oil prices and deregulate natural-gas rates, and forced him to remove fees he had imposed on imported crude oil as a means of encouraging domestic production and conservation. Yet Congress was un-able to devise energy measures Ford would approve. However, construction of the Alaska oil pipeline was started (1975).

To encourage the self-sufficiency of farmers and to prevent the imposition of undue government controls, Ford advocated an open agricultural market and low crop-support prices. His embargo on U.S. grain shipments to the Soviet Union, an anti-inflationary step to lower food prices, caused considerable resentment in the farm states. Ford's most joyful domestic activity was presiding over the Nation's Bicentennial celebration, which culminated on July 4, 1976, with festivities across the land.

The President retained Henry A. Kissinger as Secretary of State, and stressed loyalty to traditional U.S. alliances and overseas commitments. On his 3 trips to Europe, he pledged to maintain support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); signed at Helsinki, a multilateral charter that among other things confirmed certain post-World War II boundery changes; and participated in an economic conference of the major Western powers held at Rambouillet, France. He later hosted a similar meeting in Puerto Rico.

Ford journeyed twice to Asia as well. He was the first American President to visit Japan while in office and reaffirmed U.S. friendship with that nation. He also conferred in Peking with Mao Tse-tung of the People's Republic of China.

A keystone of Ford's foreign policy was improvment of relations with the Soviet Union. Meeting at Vladivostok in 1974, he and Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev concurred on certain quantitative limitations on strategic nuclear arms. Two years later, the 2 powers agreed to limit underground nuclear tests.

In the Mideast, following arduous negotiations that Kissinger conducted as an intermediary, the administration scored a signal success in the disengagement of Israeli-Egyptian forces in the Sinai and Israeli-Syrian armies on the Golan Heights.

Ford strove early in his term to find means of preserv-ing the anti-Communist governments of Cambodia and Viet-Nam. Congress rejected his proposals to increase military aid to these regimes, though it approved humanitarian assistance. Events rendered the disagreement moot, for in the spring of 1975 Communist-backed forces triumphed in both countries. The U.S. extended refuge to many thousands of exiles.

The Ford administration subsequently demonstrated strong concern over the fate of missing American prisoners-of-war, and vetoed Vietnam's admission to the United Nations. After the new Cambodian Government detained a U.S. merchant vessal, the MAYAGUEZ, the President took stiff military action to gain her release.

Because of the state of affairs in southern Africa during Ford's last year in office, he sought to mediate a lessening of tensions. Limited aid to pro-Western forces in Angola's civil war proved unavailing, and Congress refused to approve more substantial sums the President recommended. Conflict between the government of Rhodesia and its antagonists also mounted, and civil unrest grew in South Africa.

Ford fought an uphill battle in his attempt to win reelection. Within the Republican Party, he was seriously challenged from the right, by ex-Governor of California Ronald Reagan. Smoothing Ford's path, late in 1975 Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, who had been a target of party conservatives, announced he would not be a candidate for another term. Nevertheless, Ford's race with Reagan was a close one through the primaries, and he did not triumph until the convention. He chose Kansas Senator Robert J. Dole as his running mate.

In his clash with Democrat Jimmy Carter, Ford upset early public-opinion polls that pointed to a Carter sweep and nearly won the election. Ford rendered maximum assist-ance to the President-elect during the transition and won praise in Carter's inaugural address for what he had done to heal the Nation.

The Fords retired to Palm Springs, California.

Born in 1924 at Plains, Georgia., James Earl (`Jimmy') Carter, Jr., was the first child of a farmer-storekeeper and a registered nurse-housewife. They later raised another son and 2 daughters. When Jimmy was 4 years old, the family moved to nearby Archery. He helped his father, who was also active in local and county affairs, on the farm and in the store. He attended the local public school in Plains from which he graduated in 1941.

In 1942, after a year of study at Georgia Southwestern College in nearby Americus, Carter entered the Georgia Institute of Technology (`Georgia Tech') at Atlanta as a naval ROTC student. The next year, he fulfilled a childhood ambition by entering the U.S. Naval Academy, in Annapolis, MD. His class, in which he stood in the top tenth, graduated in 1946 on an accelerated schedule because of the needs of W.W. II (1939-45). Shortly after graduation, he married Rosalynn Smith of Plains. They had 4 children: 3 sons and a daughter.

During Carter's subsequent naval career (1946-53), he rose from ensign to lieutenant. His wife accompanied him to his home ports. These included Norfolk, VA.; New London, CT.; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; San Diego, CA.; and Schenectady, NY. He first served at sea on board experimental radar and gunnery vessels as well as submarines. The highlight of his service was participation in the nuclear submarine construc-tion program, which was directed by Capt. (later Adm.) Hyman G. Rickover. During this time, Carter took courses in nu-clear physics and reactor technology at Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.

In 1953, following the death of his father, who among his other activities had been sitting in the State legisla-ture, Carter resigned his commission. He and his family re-turned to Plains and took over his father's farm and agri-cultural supply business. After some lean years, they built up a prosperous peanut production and processing enterprise.

Although Carter also involved himself in civic, church, and fraternal affairs, he steadfastly refused to join the local segregationist White Citizens' Council. He served on the county school, library, and hospital boards; and participated in local and State economic planning organizations.

In 1962 Carter, a lifelong Democrat, entered the political arena. After a strenuous contest, he won a seat in the State senate and held it for 2 terms (1963-67). He demonstrated a special interest in election reform and improvement of the educational system.

Carter had planned to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966, but decided to seek the governorship after the leading candidate in his party withdrew. Although he failed to win the nomination then, he did so 4 years later, and then won the general election.

During his single term (1971-75), while stressing economy and tightening budget procedures, Carter thoroughly reorganized the State government. He also displayed strong interest in conservation and attracted national attention for his moderate stance on civil rights. He capped his gubernatorial years by helping direct the 1974 Democrat national campaign.

Late that year, Carter announced his candidacy for the Presidency. In succeeding months, he, his family, and other backers crisscrossed the country to build up grassroots strength. After his success in Iowa's Democratic caucuses early in 1976, he won victories in several key primary elections. His phenomenal rise confounded political experts, who had regarded his quest as hopeless.

Carter's support mounted so steadily that several other leading contenders withdrew. Even before the convention, he gained virtual assurance of the nomination and, in a departure from tradition, announced in advance his Vice-Presidential choice, Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota.

The contest between Carter and incumbent Chief Execu-tive Ford, the first Presidential campaign conducted with substantial amounts of public funds, featured a series of 3 televised debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters. These were the first since those in 1960, but the television debate between Vice Presidential candidates Mondale and Republican Senator Robert J. Dole set a precedent.

Carter won by a relatively narrow but conclusive margin over Ford in both popular and electoral votes - the popular margin exceeding that of Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968. Carter scored heavily among blacks and with labor, showed special strength in his native South, and ran well in the Northeast. He was the first President from Georgia and the first elected directly from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor in 1848.

Many problems confronted the new President. The bitter legacy of the war in South East Asia, the pervasive oil- energy crisis, the continuing tensions in the Middle East, inflation and the deteriorating exchange value of the dollar. Added to this, Congress developed a more independent attitude and was not fully cooperative and refused to pass or delayed many of Carter's proposals.

As one of his initial steps in office, Carter pardoned over 10,000 Viet-Nam War draft resisters and admitted over 15,000 refugees from South East Asia. But his efforts to delay construction of major federal water projects pending further study of their ecological and economic impact met with immediate resistance. And many of his recommendations to combat the economic-energy problem met with equal delay from Congress.

Neither did it help when the President's Budget Director, Bert Lance, was accused (1977) of impropriety in the handling of his banking career in Georgia. Carter vigorously defended his friend but finally accepted his resignation. (Lance was later exonerated of all charges.)

Carter's energy program was based on improving the independence of America's oil needs from foreign dominated sources. Early in his term he met with leaders of Saudi Arabia to discuss oil prices (and the Middle East question). He established a Department of Energy, proposed the deregulation of oil and gas to stimulate oil and gas exploration, and a `windfall profit' tax. He also encouraged conservation and the use of alternate sources of energy. While many of these measures passed eventually, they were delayed and weakened in their final form by Congress despite a blackout in New York City (1977) and odd/even day gas rationing in many States in 1979.

Inflation plagued most of Carter's term in office. The dollar slipped to its lowest exchange levels in a decade. He met with Germany in an attempt to protect further slippage. He set limits on domestic increases in prices and wages. The money supply was tightened and high interest rates were established by the Federal Reserve Board despite the danger of increasing unemployment. Carter made efforts to reduce the Federal budget by, among other things, opposing the B1 bomber, proposing Welfare reforms and pushing the Civil Service Reform Act - the first major reform since 1883. All efforts were to little avail. Inflation grew to double digits and the trade deficit expanded to the highest point in U.S. History.

Some domestic issues were popular. Carter lifted travel restrictions to Cuba and Asian countries in 1977. The house approved measures to raise the mandatory retirement age in private industry from 67 to 70 and to increase the minimum wage to $3.35 by 1981. The Alaska Land Bill expanded the National Park system by 43.5 million acres. The House and Senate adopted a Code of Ethics in response to a lobbying scandal involving South Korea and 3 Representatives (1978). Carter also pushed for the deregulation of transportation and banking to increase competition and reduce prices. He supported the creation of a Department of Education and a National Health Insurance plan. NASA demonstrated its capability when Pioneer II reached Venus and Voyager I reached Jupiter.

Less encouraging was a coal miner strike which lasted 110 days and increased apprehension over energy supplies. Farmers twice staged demonstrations in the nation's capital for price supports. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed in Illinois to acquire the necessary number of States for ratification but congress did extend the deadline for 39 months. Extreme concern over nuclear energy policy and regulatory procedure was created by a malfunction at 3-mile Island. A great shock to the Nation was the suicide-massacre of 900 American expatriate members of The Peoples Temple in Guyana.

Foreign policy brought Carter some his greatest successes and most devastating defeats. He negotiated treaties (1978) which would give up control of the Panama Canal by the year 2000 and guarantee the Canal's permanent neutrality. With Great Britain, the U.S. proposed a solution to the Rhodesian (later Zimbabwe) problem which gave a black majority to the African government. The U.S. joined the U.N. in an embargo of arms sales to South Africa. The U.S. and U.S.S.R joined 13 other nations to agreed to rules regarding the importation of nuclear technology; also, Carter stopped military aid to Pakistan to force it to discontinue the development of a nuclear bomb. America and the Republic of China established formal diplomatic ties and trade agreements (1979), the first since 1949.

In 1979 Carter had his most satisfying personal tri-umph. He initiated 2 meetings, one each with Prime Minister Begin of Israel in 1977 and President Sadat of Egypt in 1978. Later that year, he met again with Begin and Sadat in September at Camp David to negotiate a treaty between the two Middle Eastern Countries. His diplomatic efforts were considered crucial to the eventual success of the meeting.

Relations with the Soviet Union remained strained. Though detente remained official policy, Carter's principal of `Human Rights' through the world offended many among the more repressive regimes. However, U.S. and U.S.S.R. negotiators did agree upon the new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) in June, 1979. An the heels of this agreement, however, Russian troops invaded Afghanistan and established a puppet government. In retaliation, Carter stopped grain sales to the U.S.S.R. and persuaded the U.S. Olympic Committee to refuse to participate in the 1980 Games in Moscow as a demonstration of dismay.

The country's most trying problem emotionally involved Iran. In May, 1978 large scale demonstrations broke out against Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and by November he declared martial law. But in January, 1979, he was forced to leave and one month later, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomani (Khomeini) returned to Iran after 15 years in exile, assumed control of the government (Feb. 1979), generated vitriolic attacks against the U.S., and stopped oil exports to America. When Carter permitted the Shah to enter the U.S. for medical treatment, Iranian students and extremists, with the backing of their Government, took over the American Embassy in Tehran and held its staff as hostages.

The hostage crisis dominated the news almost daily dur-ing the last 14 months of Carter's time in office and di-rectly effected his decline in popularity. One military attempt to rescue the 52 hostages was a dismal failure. Coupled with continued financial and energy problems, the mood of Americans led to Carter's loss in the next election. As a final insult, Iran released the hostages on his last day in office.

Carter returned to Plains, Georgia, where he estab-lished a center for his official papers, wrote his memoirs and articles which commented on foreign and domestic affairs.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911, the second of two sons, to Nelle Wilson and John E. Reagan. John was a first-generation American shoe salesman. Nelle was known for her work with charitable causes and her dramatic readings which gave Ronald his first introduction to drama.

Reagan went to high school in Dixon, IL, and graduated in 1928. At Eureka College, IL., he was president of the student body, a guard on the football team and a member of the swimming team. He was one of the leading actors in his college dramatic productions. He graduated in 1932 with a B.A. degree in sociology and economics. For 7 school and college year summers, he was a lifeguard at a local swimming beach where he was credited with saving 77 lives.

After leaving college, Reagan became a sports broad-caster of a Des Moines radio station (1932-37). While re-porting on the spring training of the Chicago Cubs in Cali-fornia, he took a screen test in Hollywood and was awarded a $200-a-week contract with Warner Brothers. He participated in a total of 50 films during his Hollywood career. The best role may have been that of a victim of a surgeon in KING'S ROW (1942). Most remembered, however, was the part of George Gipp, a Notre Dame football player (1940).

Reagan married and began rearing a family while in Hollywood. He first married the actress Jane Wyman (1940), and had 2 children. Divorced in 1949, Reagan then married actress Nancy Davis in 1952. They also had two children. He was the 1st President to have been divorced.

As an actor, Reagan was appointed to the Screen Actors Guild in 1938. He began to seek better pay and working conditions for fellow performers. After World War II, he was elected president of the guild (1947-60) and served 5 consecutive terms. He appeared before the House Un-american Activities Committee as a witness to denounce communism in the film industry in 1947. In 1949, he was appointed as the chairman of the Motion Pictures Industry Council. Reagan became skilled in the task of negotiations. He is the only President who has also been the leader of a union.

During the 1930's, Reagan had become a reserve officer in the cavalry. During W.W.II, Reagan served with an Army Air Forces motion picture unit in Hollywood where he assisted in the production of training films and the instruction of combat film crews. His poor eyesight made him ineligible for combat duty. He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of captain.

After the war, though an early liberal (voting and cam-paigning for Truman in 1948), Reagan began to question some of his earlier positions. He became a leader of the American Veterans Committee and, with his acting ability, became and popular public speaker. He attacked Communist influence in the film industry as well as the Committee of which he was a member (then resigned). He also talked about the excesses of governmen- tal bureaucracy. By the early 1950's, Reagan was demonstrating a conservative philosophy warning against collectivism and centralized power in State and National governments.

Between 1945-62, Reagan was employed as host and program supervisor of GENERAL ELECTRIC THEATER, toured nationally as a company spokesman and enunciated his conservative views. In 1962, Reagan switched to the Republican Party and in 1964 campaigned for Goldwater. During 1962-65, Reagan became the host and actor on the "DEATH VALLEY DAYS" TV series.

Reagan's successes during the Goldwater campaign imp-ressed California Republican leaders who persuaded him to try for the governorship. In 1966, he announced his candid-acy, won the Republican primary and defeated Pat Brown in the gubernatorial election. He was sworn into office in 1967.

The new governor emphasized efficiency and economic prudence in his administration. While concessions had to be made to the Democratic majority of the State legislation, he obtained bills to reduce government controls and vetoed bills that would have increased expenditures in social programs and higher-education. Although the State budget doubled, Reagan kept the state employees down; and his tax measures made an initial $200 million treasury deficit into a surplus of about $550 million.

In 1968, 72, & 76, Reagan was unsuccessful in his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. In 1980, he overwhelmed his Republican opponents in the primaries and won the nomination. George H. Bush, his closest Republican challenger, became his Vice-Presidential candidate.

The country was suffering from the impact of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the trauma of the year-long imprisonment of 52 Americans in Tehran and high inflation. Against the incumbent President, Reagan won 489 electoral votes to 49 for Jimmy Carter. Reagan took office on Jan. 20, 1981, almost on the hour the Iranian hostages were released. At 69, he is the oldest elected President.

During the first 3 months in office, Reagan announced a freeze on government hiring and an immediate end to all remaining price controls on oil. He forged a bipartisan coalition in Congress which led to enactment of an economic program which included the largest budget and tax cuts in U.S. history. Reagan noted that the cuts would do little more than reduce the rate of increases in Government spending. The Air Traffic Contolers struck and were fired in Aug '81. The Gramm-Rudman Bill was passed in '85. It was designed to balance the budget by '91; a major Tax Reform Act was passed in '86. Yet the Dow plunged 22.6% in Aug, '87 and we saw the first trillion dollar Federal Budget.

In March, 1981, the President was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan was the 8th President to be the victim of an assassination and the 1st to survive a wound.

The 1st reusable space shuttle Columbia takes off in Sally Ride becomes int he 1st American in space in Jun '83. In '87 The shuttle Challenger explodes after liftoff killing all 7 abord including teacher Christa McAuliffe

Internationally, in March, 1981, millions of Polish workers taged the largest strike since 1945. In April 2, 1981, civil ar erupted in Lebanon between Christian forces and Syrian roops. In 1983, Reagan sent a task force to lead the invasion f Grenada, and joined 3 European nations in maintaining a eacekeeping force in Beirut, Lebanon. This ended in disaster as 41 Marines and sailors were killed in their quarters by a terrorist n Oct 23,'83. Reagan and Russian Premier Gorbachev met in Geneva '85) and Iceland ('87) leading to an agrement to dismantle long range issiles. A major accident at Chernoble nuclear plant causes many to eassess the power sours. The Lybian Government was percieved as ponsors of terrorism against Americans and other targets. Tripoli nd Benghazi were bombed by American plans and Lybian assets in US anks were frozen. The US Navy sent warships to patrol the Persian ulf to protect tankers.

The US Supreme Court saw new faces. Sandra Day O'Conner became the first woman appointed. Antonia Scalia was confirmed '86 and Robert Bork's nomination was rejected.

In Washington, the Iran-Cantra Affair was opened to public view ('88) by the Tower Commission showing the administration's efforts to override a Congressional ban on aid to Nicaraguan rebels. Presidental National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and his successor Adm. John Poindextor, CIA Dir. William Cassey (who died) and Aid Col. North testified to their hidden efforts to sell arms to Iran to raise funds to aid the rebels.

Reagan and VP Bush were reelected for their second term in '84 and defeated Dem Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.

At the end of his second term Teagan and his wife Nancy retired to their California Ranch.