The same was measurably true of Grant.
Cleveland confessed himself to have had no social training, and he
literally knew nobody.
Five or six weeks after his inauguration I went to Washington to ask a
diplomatic appointment for my friend, Boyd Winchester. Ill health had cut
short a promising career in Congress, but Mr. Winchester was now well on to
recovery, and there seemed no reason why he should not and did not stand in
the line of preferment. My experience may be worth recording because it is
illustrative.
In my quest I had not thought of going beyond Mr. Bayard, the new Secretary
of State. I did go to him, but the matter seemed to make no headway. There
appeared a hitch somewhere. It had not crossed my mind that it might be
the President himself. What did the President know or care about foreign
appointments?
He said to me on a Saturday when I was introducing a party of Kentucky
friends: "Come up to-morrow for luncheon. Come early, for Rose"--his
sister, for the time being mistress of the White House--"will be at church
and we can have an old-fashioned talk-it-out."
The next day we passed the forenoon together. He was full of homely and
often whimsical talk. He told me he had not yet realized what had happened
to him.
"Sometimes," he said, "I wake at night and rub my eyes and wonder if it is
not all a dream."
He asked an infinite number of questions about this, that and the other
Democratic politician. He was having trouble with the Kentucky Congressmen.
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