# 827 - 1938 22c Cleveland, vermillion

 

Issue Date: November 22, 1938
City: Washington, DC
Quantity: 49,878,000
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Rotary press
Perforations: 11 x 10 ½
Color: Vermillion

 

Known affectionately as the “Prexies,” the 1938 Presidential series is a favorite among stamp collectors. The 22¢ denomination pictures Grover Cleveland, the only President to serve two terms that were not consecutive. He was also the first President to be married in the White House, and his daughter, Esther, was the first and only child to be born there.

 

The series was issued in response to public clamoring for a new Regular Issue series. The series that was current at the time had been in use for more than a decade. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed, and a contest was staged. The public was asked to submit original designs for a new series picturing all deceased U.S. Presidents. Over 1,100 sketches were submitted, many from veteran stamp collectors. Elaine Rawlinson, who had little knowledge of stamps, won the contest and collected the $500 prize. Rawlinson was the first stamp designer since the Bureau of Engraving and Printing began producing U.S. stamps who was not a government employee.

 

Death Of President Grover Cleveland

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, on March 18, 1837.  He was a distant relative of General Moses Cleveland, the namesake of Cleveland, Ohio.  The future president was named after the first pastor of his father’s church.  However, he preferred to go by his middle name of Grover later in life.

The Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville, New York, in 1841, where Grover spent much of his childhood.  After his father died, Grover left school to help support his family.  Grover later set out west, stopping in Buffalo, New York, where he worked as a clerk in his uncle’s office and was introduced to the influential law partners of Rogers, Bowen, and Rogers.  He then worked as a clerk in their office before being admitted to the bar in 1859.

A major stepping-stone on Cleveland’s path to the presidency came in 1881.  Up to that point, the Republican Buffalo government had grown increasingly corrupt. 

So the Democrats sought out the most honest candidate they could find – Grover Cleveland.  Cleveland won the election by more than 3,500 votes.  He spent much of his term as mayor battling the interests of party machines.  Cleveland frequently worked to protect public funds, building his reputation as an honest politician.

Two years later, Cleveland was a natural choice for the Democratic presidential candidate.  He won the election of 1884 by one-quarter of a percent of the popular vote, and with an electoral vote of 219 to 182.  When he delivered his inaugural address the following March, he did so without the use of notes, which no other President had done before.

Cleveland worked to reform other parts of the government, such as in 1887, when he signed the legislation establishing the Interstate Commerce Commission.  He also worked with the secretary of the Navy to modernize and cancel construction contracts that resulted in faulty ships.  Squaring off against the Republican Senate, Cleveland used his veto power a great deal more than any other president up to that time.  He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for Civil War veterans, believing Congress should not override the Pension Bureau’s decision.

While Cleveland looked forward to the peace of private life, his young wife, Frances, instructed the staff to take good care of the furniture and decorations, “for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again.”  When asked when they would return, she said, “four years from today.”  Little did President Cleveland know just how right she would be.

While Cleveland happily enjoyed private life in New York City, President Harrison’s administration passed the McKinley Tariff and Sherman Silver Purchase Act.  Cleveland saw both of these policies as dangerous for the nation’s economy.  While he initially decided not to speak out about his outrage, he later felt it was his duty to address these concerns.  Cleveland submitted an open “silver letter” to a meeting of reformers in New York.  This letter made Cleveland a national name once again, just as the 1892 election approached.  He went on to win that election, returning to the White House as his wife had foretold.

Next, Cleveland then turned his attention to reversing the McKinley tariff.  Though he considered the new Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act to be “a disgraceful product of the control of the Senate by trusts and business interests,” he still considered it an improvement over the McKinley Tariff and allowed it to become law.

After leaving the White House in 1897, Cleveland retired to his estate at Westfield Mansion in Princeton, New Jersey.  He served briefly as a trustee of Princeton University and consulted with President Theodore Roosevelt during his time in office.  After several years of poor health, Cleveland became seriously ill in 1907 and suffered a heart attack the following year, dying on June 24.  His final words were, “I have tried so hard to do right.”