Page 37 - Barbecue News Magazine August 2020
P. 37

22. Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889
Grover Cleveland was the only person to serve two non-consecu- tive terms as president. He also was the only man to marry and have his wedding at the White House. His wife was originally from St Paul Minnesota, but locals commonly refer to the city as Pig’s Eye after a fur trader turned to bootlegging. Cleveland holds the record for stopping the most pork barrel spending by vetoing over 500 bills presented to him. He said his greatest accomplishment as president was blocking other people’s bad ideas. Between his two terms the democratic party was seen to go back to its old days of overspending.
Many Americans view Labor Day as a just another day off work to enjoy a barbecue with family and friends before the dreary days of winter. But it had its beginnings in a deadly labor strike in Chicago. President Cleveland sent in federal troops to break a railroad strike and things turned bad quickly. After the turmoil settled down one of the resulting actions was the passing of a law that created a new federal holiday in honor of union workers and laborers.
Cleveland was the second largest man to serve as president and he really loved to eat, smoke and drink. This resulted in him hav- ing a secret
emergency
surgery on a
yacht to re-
move oral can-
cer. In a
attempt to
limit his daily
consumption
of beer, and ci-
gars he and a
friend agreed
to limit them-
selves to four
20 oz beers a
day. His oppo-
nents often re-
ferred to him
as a pig be-
cause of his
large size and
consumption.
23. Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893
Benjamin Harrison came from a long line of prestigious political people. He was the great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison a origi- nal signer of The Declaration of Independence, grandson of William Henry Harrison (9th President), son of John Harrison, US Congressman. One of the only grandfather- grandson duos to serve as president. Perhaps following in his grandfather footsteps he once hosted a barbecue for more than 30,000 attendees! While serving as an officer in the Union army he was given some under- cooked barbecue and got a terrible case of food poisoning. He was also the last Civil War general to serve as president.
He was a known champion for Civil War veterans and their de- pendents. He established the first National Military Park at Chickamauga Battlefield in 1890. This one of a kind event fea- tured a Blue and Gray Barbecue where Civil War Veterans form both sides were able to meet again, but this time they enjoyed a
massive barbecue and even smoked a ceremonial peace pipe.
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BarbecueNews.com - 37
B.Q. Score 5
During his administration six western territories became states. He opened the Indian territory in Oklahoma and 60,000 settlers quickly claimed the 1.9 million acres. Mining boom towns in SE Oklahoma attracted eastern Europeans to that area of the state. These “boomers”, “sooners” (those who illegally entered the terri- tory) and settlers brought their old world foodways with them. This included large tubes of bologna, which they learned to smoke over open fires. That is said to be the origin of the Oklahoma prime rib, or smoked bologna barbecue.
He lobbied for the Forest Reserve Act which gives the president the authority to set aside national forest reserves for the public domain. He used this law it to set aside 13 million acres for na- tional forests. This signaled a shift in public land management and eventually would inspire generations of recreational activi- ties for outdoorsmen to hunt, camp and cook outdoors. We cur- rently have over 200 million acres set aside for public use.
The Meat Inspection Act of 1891 was in response to new tech- nologies. The invention of refrigeration in 1880 allowed for large scale lower cost meat prices. Smaller slaughter houses claimed
that the larger firms used diseased cattle and that their meat was unsafe.
He made Columbus Day a national holiday in 1892 to mark the 400th an- niversary of the event. One of the many things that occurred during the Columbian ex- change was the recording of the word and writ- ten description of “barbecue”.
He opened Ellis
Island, commis-
sioned the
Pledge of Alle-
giance, over 5
million immi-
grants arrived at
our shores from
1888 to 1892,
representing the
largest folk
movement in
world history.
Bringing with
them the deli-
cious barbecue traditions that can still be seen from New York to South Carolina and Texas. B.Q. Score 6
24. Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
(See above)












































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