Chronicles of Brunonia
The Operation
Joey Glaser-Reich B’11
In 1893, with the nation in the throws of a financial panic,
President Grover Cleveland slipped out of Washington, DC
for a secret operation.
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/cob
Copyright © 2010 Joey Glaser-Reich
Written in partial fulfillment of requirements for E. Taylor’s EL18 or 118:
“Tales of the Real World” in the Nonfiction Writing Program, Department of English, Brown University.
Six doctors huddled around their anesthetized patient easing a gelatinous mass
from his mouth. A motor chugged in the background and the floor vibrated as
their operating room, the living room of a yacht, steamed at half-speed up the
East River. They were operating under the strictest veil of secrecy; not even their
families knew where they were. This secrecy, however, only heightened the heavy
tension. This patient happened to be a man that they could not lose. He began to
stir, his corpulent face jiggling slightly, as the nitrous oxide started to wear off.
The doctors uttered a quick prayer and administered ether, a stronger and much
riskier anesthetic. The patient, President Grover Cleveland, dropped off again,
still as death.
On the first of May 1893, President Grover Cleveland noticed a rough spot on the
left side his mouth. Over the next six weeks, this insidious spot grew into an
irritating inconvenience, interfering with his habitual cigar chewing. Fed up with
the pain, Cleveland summoned Dr. R.M. O’Reilly, the official government doctor
in Washington, to examine his mouth. O’Reilly quickly discovered the source of
Cleveland’s discomfort: an ulcer the size of a quarter. Worried, O’Reilly removed
a sample of the ulcer and sent it to the Army Medical Museum for analysis, where
a pathologist confirmed the likely malignant, or aggressive, nature of the tumor.
Dr. O’Reilly called Dr. Joseph D. Bryant for a second opinion. After
examining his friend, Bryant looked Cleveland squarely in the eyes and told him
that if he had an ulcer like that in his mouth he “would have it removed at once.”
“At once,” however, proved to be a sticking point. Cleveland insisted on
discretion, refusing to have any operation before July, a month from then. He
desperately wanted to avoid public knowledge of his medical condition. He feared
further inflaming the current financial panic sparked by the recent collapse of the
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad companies and fanned by the Sherman Silver
Act of 1890 passed three years earlier. This act required the United States
Treasury to purchase millions of ounces of silver every year from western silver
mining states with notes redeemable in either gold or silver. These purchases
fueled further silver mining, increasing the supply of silver and decreasing its
price. Understandably, people redeemed their treasury notes for gold, decreasing
the U.S. gold reserves and inflating U.S. currency by about $50 million.
To make matters trickier, political maneuvering prior to the election
bequeathed Cleveland with a pro-Sherman Silver Act Vice President, Adlai
Stevenson. A hint of the severity of Cleveland’s illness would build Stevenson’s
political capital while destroying the President’s, thereby crippling Cleveland’s
drive to repeal the Sherman Silver Act.
O’Reilly, Bryant, and Cleveland confided in Secretary of War Daniel
Lamont, a close personal friend and advisor to the President. Lamont quickly
contacted Elias C. Benedict, another one of Cleveland’s close personal friends and
fishing partners, and secured his yacht, the Oneida, for the operation. Bryant and
Cleveland set August 7 as the target date for the President’s return to
Washington. This timeframe optimistically assumed that the cancer would not
metastasize, moving to other parts of his body, and that the surgery would not
cause any complications.
Bryant wrote to Dr. William Williams Keen, one of the nation’s leading
surgeons and a good friend of Bryant, asking that they meet to discuss “a very
important matter.” Soon, the doctors met in New York on the deck of a deserted
boat. Bryant explained the grave situation to Keen, who immediately agreed to
help. The two doctors then planned the coming operation thoroughly exploring
all the necessary preparations, from disinfecting the living room on the Oneida to
assembling the surgical team.
Had Cleveland lived a mere fifty years earlier, this tumor likely would have
been a death sentence. Only in the early 1800s did Rudolf Virchow, a pioneer in
cellular pathology, conduct the observations that set the stage for the
development of cancer surgery. And more importantly, only in 1846 did
anesthesia become widely available, allowing the art and science of surgery to
progress and develop methods to successfully remove tumors.
On June 30, 1893, the surgical team mustered aboard the Oneida,
anchored a judicious distance off the coast of New York City. The President, Dr.
Bryant, and Secretary Lamont slipped out of Washington, telling the White
House staff and cabinet officers that they were going to “go fishing.” They arrived
aboard the Oneida late the same evening. Two hours after the President’s stealthy
departure, the White House issued Cleveland’s call for an extra session of
Congress to meet on August 7 to address the financial panic. The President now
officially had thirty-eight days to fight and recover from cancer. If he and his
doctors failed, the nation would face an economic conflagration fueled in part by
the destabilization of the nation’s leadership.
Even with this mounting pressure, Cleveland slept splendidly without any
sleeping medication. The following morning, a general physician examined the
President. Despite Cleveland’s extraordinary girth – he was in fact twice as wide
as even the most corpulent member of his cabinet – the physician found nothing
wrong with the President’s chest or kidneys. He recorded a pulse of ninety beats
per minute, high but well within the acceptable range. After this preliminary
examination, Dr. Keen conducted a second exam. He found no enlarged glands,
and confirmed O’Reilly and Bryant’s conclusion: the ulcer had to go. Throughout
the morning, the surgical team rinsed and disinfected the President’s mouth.
Before beginning the surgery, the team met to discuss concerns over using
ether to anesthetize Cleveland. Fat and fifty-six, Cleveland presented a worrisome
anesthetic predicament. His body type and age suggested the distinct possibility
of cerebral hemorrhaging or a stroke as the result of administering ether.
Additionally, the burdens of Cleveland’s first four months in office had left him
mentally and physically drained. In less than half a year he had faced a severe
financial meltdown, mounting economic tensions between the East and West
added to the residual North-South sectional divide, a rapidly expanding
population, and an unending barrage of office seekers looking for a place in the
new administration. On top of all this unrest, he struggled to fill high-level
appointments with his desired candidates. His first choices to head the State
Department, the Treasury, and the Justice Department all declined.
Accordingly, the doctors decided to play it safe with their valuable cargo
and conduct the first stages of the operation under nitrous oxide, or “laughing
gas.” Then, if necessary, they would resort to ether. Dr. Hasbrouck, the dentist
charged with the administration of the nitrous oxide, argued that it would not
keep the President sedated for a sufficient length of time to complete the
operation. Dr. Bryant, the lead surgeon, declared that when, and if, ether became
completely necessary they would use it and “pray!”
Shortly before noon the President walked to the Oneida’s converted living
room and sat heavily in a chair lashed to the mast for stability. The yacht set sail
up the East River at half speed. While waiting for the other doctors to prepare the
President for surgery, Dr. Bryant approached the captain of the boat. Fixing his
piercing gaze on him, Bryant warned, “If you hit a rock, hit it good and hard, so
that we’ll all go to the bottom!” A jolt of that size would likely kill his patient. And
what would Bryant do with a dead president? A dead president killed in a secret
operation? A dead president killed in a secret operation that Bryant had
sanctioned and performed?
Cancer and fear share a long history. Records of cancer go as far back as 1600
B.C.E. Writings from Ancient Egypt describe eight breast tumors stating, “There
is no treatment.” Hippocrates, a fourth century B.C.E. Greek physician and the
“Father of Medicine,” echoed this view. In fact, resignation about treatment
persisted into the twentieth century. As recently as the 1970s, only half of the
people diagnosed with cancer survived for five years. Bryant and his surgical
team were about to attack what most people at the time still saw as an incurable
disease. Moreover, they planned to have their patient back in Washington with
no one the wiser in a little over a month.
As the yacht glided along, the operation began in the cabin. This forward
motion likely helped add stability since a slow moving boat is generally more
stable than a boat at anchor. Commodore Benedict and Secretary Lamont
remained on deck staring blankly at the horizon. The wind ruffled the
Commodore’s thick white beard and the Secretary’s full mustache.
First Dr. O’Reilly administers the nitrous oxide and inserts Dr. Keen’s cheek
retractor. This metal instrument pulls Cleveland’s fleshy cheek out of the way,
allowing the doctors access to the ulcer without external incisions. Their goal is to
prevent any noticeable scarring or disfigurement of the President’s cheek so that,
if he lives, he will be able to appear in public without jeopardizing the secrecy of
the operation.
Dr. Hasbrouck extracts the two teeth closest to the ulcer. With Cleveland still
sedated, using only laughing gas, Dr. Bryant begins to slide a large electric knife
through the President’s jaw.
1:14 p.m. – Dr. Hasbrouck warns that the nitrous oxide will soon wear off.
Saying a brief prayer, Dr. O’Reilly administers ether.
With Cleveland once again sedated, Bryant continues to carve away the
President’s left upper jaw. As he works, Keen and Dr. Bryant’s assistant staunch
the flow of blood using pressure, hot water, and in one particularly dicey
instance, electrical cauterization. With Keen hovering beside him, Bryant
meticulously avoids cutting the portion of the skull that supports the eyeball. If
he accidentally cuts this bone, the President’s eye socket, along with secrecy of
the operation, collapses.
1:55 p.m. – The operation ends. The President’s pulse is 80, still well within
the normal range, and only ten beats lower than his pre-operation measurement.
Throughout the entire operation, Cleveland lost only six ounces of blood. To
prevent further bleeding, the surgeons packed the empty space left by the
procedure with gauze and returned Cleveland to his cabin. With the President
resting comfortably, the team of surgeons breathed a collective “sigh of intense
relief,” as Keen recounted years later in an account he wrote of the operation.
An hour later, Cleveland awoke in substantial pain. The doctors gave him a
single dose of morphine, the only narcotic used during the whole procedure.
Cleveland’s temperature hovered around 100.8 degrees after the operation and
did not get any higher. His pulse quickly returned to around 90. With gauze in
the cavity and substantial effort, the President could speak understandably.
Without gauze, his speech was incomprehensible.
Immediately after the operation concluded, Hasbrouck, the dentist, insisted
on going ashore, claiming that he was already two days late for another important
operation. The team collectively vetoed this request. They feared compromising
the secrecy of the operation and, more importantly, hitting a rough current while
docking and causing severe bleeding in the President’s mouth and possibly a
stroke. Hasbrouck fumed.
The next day, on July 2, Cleveland got out of bed for the first time and by
the following day he felt well enough to sign Commodore Benedict’s guest log.
The surgical team, save Dr. Bryant, all departed by the end of the July 3. Two
days later, the Oneida arrived at Gray Gables, Cleveland’s summer cottage in
Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The President walked from the yacht to his house
unassisted and with “little apparent effort.” The President hugged his relieved
wife, walked past his spacious stone hearth, and turned in for the evening.
Three days later, the Boston Herald ran an article asserting, “President Cleveland
is a sick man,” and attracted the attention of other newspapers. Eight reporters
descended on Gray Gables in the late afternoon and sought comment from the
Cleveland camp. They learned that Secretary Lamont planned to speak with them
around 7:00 p.m. Past the publication deadline for their afternoon editions, they
waited with all the patience that can be expected of reporters on the trail of a fullblown scoop.
At 7:00 p.m., Secretary Lamont walked over to an old barn about 200 yards
away from Cleveland’s house to deal with the crowd of curious reporters. He
greeted them kindly and stated matter-of-factly that the President “never enjoyed
having a dentist work over him. In consequence he had allowed his dental work
to fall so badly into arrears that he finally felt compelled to go on the yacht; here
he could be cool and comfortable and let the dentist make a thorough job of it.”
The reporters fired back, demanding particulars:
“What was the name of the dentist?”
“What procedures did he perform?”
Lamont coolly dismissed these questions as “too trivial to talk about.”
The reporters walked back to their hotel by the railroad station arguing. About
half of them believed Lamont’s yarn. That evening they held a contentious
meeting to decide the story, having agreed earlier to send out a unified version of
events to all of their papers. The secret along with the financial fate of the nation
turned on the credibility of one man and his story.
Meanwhile, the nation continued to wobble towards financial catastrophe. On
average, one bank failed every other day. The unemployment in the industrial
workforce rapidly approached 15%. And, due in large part to the Sherman Silver
Act, the Treasury was hemorrhaging gold, further weakening the public faith in
the financial market. A serious presidential medical problem was the last thing
the country needed.
The following day, the reporters gave the world Lamont’s version of events.
Within the next two weeks, Dr. Kasson C. Gibson, a well-respected New York
orthodontist, fit the President for a vulcanized rubber jaw. This apparatus kept
the President’s cheek from caving in and allowed him to speak clearly.
After the fitting, Dr. Bryant examined the site of the operation to check the
healing progress and the fit of the artificial jaw. To his dismay, he discovered that
the first procedure missed some diseased tissue. He urgently summoned the
surgical team. Cleveland had to be in Washington on August 7, or all the secrecy
and all of the yarn spinning and all of the lying would be for naught.
The team traveled to Commodore Benedict’s home in Greenwich,
Connecticut, and boarded the Oneida once again. The yacht picked up the
President and Bryant at Gray Gables. On July 17, Dr. Bryant excised all the
remaining questionable tissue and cauterized all of the bleeding portions of
Cleveland’s mouth. Mercifully, the operation was short, and the President
recovered quickly.
The day after the operation, Dr. Keen left the Oneida at Newport, RI. On the
boat home, Keen ran into his brother-in-law, Spencer Borden, before he managed
to hole up in his room. Surprised to see Keen, Borden exclaimed, “Hello! What
are you doing here?” Once again, the secrecy of the entire operation hinged on
creative bluffing.
Keen casually explained that he had a “consultation near by, and did not have
time to visit the family in Fall River.” Fortunately, Borden respected the concept
of doctor patient confidentiality and did not press Keen for more details.
On August 5, President Cleveland left Gray Gables for Washington and the
special session of Congress he had called to address the financial crisis by
repealing the Sherman Silver Act. While in Washington he stoically argued his
case without betraying a hint of the medical crucible he recently survived.
However, Cleveland needed a bit more time to fully recover and returned to Gray
Gables on August 11.
At the end of August, with both Houses of Congress fiercely debating the
repeal of the Sherman Silver Act, the Philadelphia Press almost unraveled the
entire frayed secret. An article, published on August 29, claimed that a team of
surgeons had recently performed major oral surgery on President Cleveland on
the Oneida. The article was factually correct. The leak was traced to Hasbrouck.
When Hasbrouck finally managed to leave the Oneida after the first
operation, he traveled to assist society doctor Leander P. Jones. To explain his
tardiness, Hasbrouck told Jones what he had been doing. Angry that the
President had not requested his medical expertise, Jones tipped off a friend at the
newspaper, telling him to talk to Hasbrouck. The reporter convinced Hasbrouck
that the story should be public knowledge by playing to Hasbrouck’s pride in
participating in such a nationally significant event.
Fortunately for Cleveland and the effort to repeal the Sherman Silver Act, the
story was met with incredulity, and soon entirely discredited by those close to the
President. Secretary Lamont continued to convincingly spin his dentist yarn and
Dr. Bryant later said he lied more during this breach than during the rest of his
life combined. The men around Cleveland painted Hasbrouck as an incompetent
dentist and a liar. They portrayed the reporter who wrote the article as a scandal
hound overly hungry for a story.
On August 30, President Grover Cleveland left Gray Gables for the winter,
returning to Washington to help guide the repeal of the Sherman Silver Act. Two
days later he arrived at the White House. On this day, a brief note by Dr. Bryant
observed that the President was “all healed.”
After nearly three months of bitter debate, Congress finally repealed the
Sherman Silver Act on November 1, 1893. While this did not immediately reverse
the financial crisis of 1893, it did help stabilize the U.S. currency, eliminating one
of the major factors that contributed to the panic. According to The New York
Times, “at that moment, as so often before, between the lasting interests of the
nation and the cowardice of some, the craft of others, in his own party, the sole
barrier was the enlightened conscience and the iron firmness of Mr. Cleveland.”
Grover Cleveland served until the end of his term in 1897. He retired to
Princeton, New Jersey, and spent his time lecturing and serving as a trustee of
the university. He died on June 24, 1908, fifteen years after the operation. The
sarcoma never recurred.
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