8. Grover Cleveland’s Perception as a Reformer Survived a Serious Scandal
As Maria Halpin stated, a few weeks after she was assaulted by Grover Cleveland, she discovered that she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby boy in September of 1874. When she declared that Cleveland was the father, he used his connections to shut her up. He had the child removed from his mother’s care and placed in an orphanage and had Halpin committed to a mental asylum. She was quickly released after an evaluation concluded that she was not insane, and had only been institutionalized as a result of egregious abuse of power by corrupt political elites.
Because real life is not fair, and justice and karma are often a joke, Cleveland got away with it. His wholesome public perception survived Halpin’s accusations, and he went on to get elected Mayor of Buffalo, then Governor of New York, before running for president in 1884. News of the scandal and his illegitimate child came out during the presidential campaign, and his opponents attacked him for the contrast between his do-gooder public persona and his seedy private life. As seen below, he survived the scandal and won the election.
