Customer Reviews

Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President

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Hoogenboom has produced a readable and scholarly look at Rutherford B. Hayes. His research is able and exhaustive and there are few (if any) errors of fact here. It's interesting that he spends much time on Hayes' sometimes neglected civil war career, with interesting results. Hayes emerges as a fairly interesting, if not always sympathetic character and a man who was highly intelligent.

Hoogenboom also illuminates Hayes' happy marriage to Lucy, and the tragedies they endured while losing some of their children. He throws ample light on Hayes as a human being and as a man, as well as a soldier and eventually President.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Antebellum politics, Hayes or America in the late 19th century.

Over the last few years I've read more than 30 presidential biographies, usually using Amazon to guide me to the best book on each president. Hoogenboom's biography of Hayes seemed the best, and I was not disappointed. Hayes comes off as a courageous man of good intentions, but also as a man who was unable to overcome the nation`s problems while he was president. His childhood story is told in detail, and it reminds us just how difficult it was to survive from day to day 200 years ago. He was a genuine Civil War hero. 1876 was certainly the US's most contentious national election. There were so many deals and chicaneries in determining the outcome in 1876 that no one will ever know who should have won.

As president Hayes lacked anything resembling a mandate, and the Republican Party was divided between spoils men and those who wanted reform. Reconstruction had failed, and it is beyond me to imagine what anyone could have done to develop a better outcome for African Americans or national unity. Suffice it to say Hayes didn't solve either problem, and although he could be criticized for not trying harder to bring out civil service reforms and to insure ensure voting rights, there simply was not enough support for these efforts. He did work to make the US economy sound after a stiff recession and he was probably the only president that cared a wit for treating Native Americans in a respectful manner.

To my surprise Hayes was genuinely a good man rather than just another Ohio politician who became a 19th century president. Hayes actually considered his world and shaped his beliefs and actions according to his synthesis of the truth, rather than going along with the crowd. His reactions to the temperance movement and organized religion are worthy of our respect. Hayes made a genuine commitment to education and was a catalyst for funding black universities and Ohio State. He was appalled at excessive wealth and championed redistribution of wealth. At his core he was a man of the people and a good husband. He simply cannot be compared to most politicos of his time.

Hoogenboom's narrative lays out Hayes and his times in readable detail. He is not a great biographer in terms of bringing his characters to life, but this biography is well organized. This is a better than average biography about a fascinating time in US history.

Quoting Mark Twain, who felt that Hayes's presidency "would steadily rise into higher and higher prominence, as time & distance give it a right perspective, until at last it would stand out against the horizon of history in its true proportions," Ari Hoogenboom states that his purpose in writing this biography is "in the hope of fulfilling Twain's prediction ...." Thus from the beginning we are warned that Hoogenboom is out to cast his subject in as favorable a light as possible. He doesn't distort the facts to attain this goal, but his judgments at times seem overstraining and one-sided. For example, a pragmatist to a fault, Hayes compromised on a number of issues (black voting rights in the South, the Chinese Immigration Bill), seeing no use in a fight to perhaps capture the high ground, yet the author is able to dismiss these moves as politically prudent. Hoogenboom includes a 5-page Afterward that is one defense after another of Hayes and his actions as president; it's such a glowing explication of the man that the only thing missing is a standing ovation.

That doesn't mean Hayes was unworthy of any praise. His Civil War career was noteworthy, serving with and leading the 23rd Ohio in many engagements, including South Mountain in Maryland where he was severely wounded. As president, his stand on civil service reform was generally commendable, fighting unsuccessfully against Congress for a civil service commission, introducing the idea of competitive exams for appointments in some departments, and ordering that federal officers not be permitted to take part in political activities. Although hardly mentioned by Hoogenboom, the Hayes administration also did much to stop the wanton destruction of much of the national forest lands. Hayes also was the one who appointed the great Supreme Court justice John Marshall Harlan to the bench.

Of course, Hoogenboom describes in detail the "stolen" election that got Hayes into office. He also relates admirably the post-presidency years of Hayes, his great interest in education and prison reform. Hoogenboom is also a competent writer, and he sweeps the reader along laudably with his narrative. The biography is an informative and interesting account of the nineteenth president; it's just that the author's singular purpose in writing the book must be kept in mind while reading it.

My nearly 10-year journey to read a biography of every President is almost over! And, no it hasn't taken me this long to read that many books because I haven't been able to read Presidential bios exclusively.

So now that I'm in the short rows as they say, I'm stuck with reading bios of Presidents like Rutherford B Hayes. I didn't know a thing about him nor did I know a whole lot about what happened during his Presidency... other than it was post Civil War, pre-1900s America. With all that in mind, I must commend the author on writing an interesting and readable bio of a President who it appears is underrated as a person and as a leader.

The book was very thorough and spent a lot of time dealing with key, non-political, issues such as Hayes' tremendous military career and his strong relationship with wife Lucy. It also did a great job of detailing his influence over the Republican party prior to and after his Presidency. I agree with the author who suggested that Hayes' biggest mistake was sticking to his one-term pledge. He would probably be recognized as one of our better Presidents would he have served two terms. His pledge to minimize patronage and reform the civil service was stunted by his successor, James Garfield, who was actually assassinated by a jilted patronage seeker. A lot of what he did was then "undone" by Chet Arthur and the Roscoe Conkling syndicate. Hayes doesn't get a lot of credit because the things he accomplished or put the country on the road to accomplishing weren't "sexy." The author does a great job of detailing his accomplishments and then tells you why they were important.

You could make the case that the author's view of Hayes is slanted toward the positive. I wouldn't argue with that. However, Hayes appears to be a good person who tried to be honest and do what was right in nearly every case. He was a huge proponent of civil rights, suffrage, Indian rights, and other causes that could be deemed as liberal by today's views. The author labels him as one of the first progressives - are you listening Glenn Beck - but to me he seems the first civil libertarian perhaps. He was a person who looked at the merits of each issue and tried to apply the Golden Rule to politics, which was something that was needed after the lackluster Presidency of U.S. Grant and the somewhat criminal Presidency of Andrew Johnson.

Not sure how a President such as Hayes would survive in today's toxic political climate, but the author certainly does a thorough job in painting him as the kind of guy you hope your sister would marry. And, the kind of guy that as an American did his best for all Americans.

I would recommend this biography as THE bio you should read of Hayes. It is long, so be ready for some in depth reading, but for the advanced history buff I think this is an enjoyable and fair read.

I have to give Professor Hoogenboom credit for giving it the old college try. He does his very best to portray Hayes as an effective politician and as a real reformer. Unfortunately, the case he makes is simply not convincing.

To be fair to Hayes, this is not to say that his life was uninteresting. This biography shows that Hayes was not just some non-entity that was tapped for the GOP nomination by the power-brokers of the party, but that he had a pretty interesting life (a Civil War record of real consequence, plus an impressive career in Ohio politics) prior to ascending to the presidency.

Unfortunately, the only reason we are reading a Hayes biography is because he became President, not because he was a Civil War general or a governor of Ohio. It is when dealing with Hayes' record as President that Hoogenboom fails to persuade the reader of Hayes' impact & commitment to reform.

For one thing, Hoogenboom pulls way too many punches when it comes to the 1876 elections. He equivocates; he is not willing to say that the elections were on the up-and-up, but neither is he willing to concede that Hayes was involved in what was a truly stolen election. Anyone who thinks the 2000 election was stolen ought to take a good look at 1876. Like it or not, Hayes was complicit in this, and his credibility was compromised from the very beginning of his term.

It really doesn't get any better from there. Was Hayes a dynamic, reform-minded president? Good luck trying to prove that --- the record simply does not support that contention, no matter how hard Hoogenboom tries accentuate the positive. Granted, Hayes' administration was not the embarrassment of scandals that typified Ulysses Grant's administration, and certainly corrupt Republicans like Roscoe Conkling & James Blaine make Hayes look quite pure, but this does not mean that Hayes had any genuine tendency towards reform. One only has to examine the not particularly comfortable relationship between Hayes and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz to see how Hayes felt about the movement supporting civil service reform, for example.

So we are left with a mixed bag. The only other Hayes biography I have read was written in the early 1930's and was so appallingly racist that I couldn't put it down fast enough. There has been precious little written on Hayes since then, so Hoogenboom has provided a great service. It is a well-written & well-researched biography, so there are no complaints in that regard. I simply do not feel that the author has convincingly made his case.

One of my favorite biographies, Ari Hoogenboom's "Hayes" is a positive and incisive look at the 19th president. Hayes is the prototypical Midwesterner, successful, yet humble, proper and reform minded, but not priggish or censorious. Hayes had a genuine concern for humanity and America. Though limited in the lengths he would travel to enact social changes we would today deem necessary (or that he himself would wish for), Hayes should be better-remembered. Hoogenboom's work is quite thorough, covering both Hayes's political and personal life.
Hayes has been criticized for giving up on Reconstruction and thus dooming blacks to a century of repression, but Hayes had genuine concern for blacks. However, by 1877 Hayes was quite limited in what he could do politically to maintain Reconstruction. Hayes was traditionally criticized for doing little to address the growing inequalities of the American economy. But, although he did help put down nation-wide strikes, Hayes was more sympathetic to labor than any other late 19th century president. I was also surprised to read about the extensive post-presidency work of Hayes, comparable to Jimmy Carter.

I visited President Hayes' library and homestead in Ohio. Asking which biography about him is considered best I was told this one was. It had a price tag of $45 for a new one. I asked when it was published and then I knew I had a good chance to find it on Amazon. SO I checked Amazon first and bought it from this source. I received this book and it was in excellent condition. I ended up with a book of my choice and had money left in my pocket.

Hayes had an interesting life and an active time in the Civil War. This book is aimed at presenting a favorable picture of him, and is written kind of like old-fashioned biographies. It pays excessive attention ro Hayes' diary, and contains considerable trivia. Some chapters are boring. The most interesting chapters are are, obviously, on 1876 and 1877 and the dramatic events around Hayes' election to the Presidency. And yes, the Republicans stole that election too!