These days, the thought of a presidential candidate being able to hide, well…anything, seems laughable. And we all know about the antics of the true media-age presidents, from Kennedy to Nixon to (Bill) Clinton. But what about earlier commanders-in-chief? Were they as dignified and scrupulous as history books sometimes make them out to be? According to Brian Abrams’ Party Like a President, that’s a big “NO.” Don’t believe us? We’ve excerpted some anecdotes from Abrams’ book to illustrate the point. Here are 4 presidential party animals from a bygone era.
John Adams
Federalist
MARCH 4, 1797–MARCH 4, 1801
John Adams quenched his thirst with a tankard of hard cider at every breakfast, a habit our second president picked up at age fifteen while attending Harvard. It was cider that helped him choke down school-provided meals. “I shall never forget,” he recollected, “how refreshing and salubrious we found it, hard as it often was. The refreshing habit became the best part of waking up for the rest of Adams’s life.”
Thomas Jefferson
Democratic-Republican
MARCH 4, 1801–MARCH 4, 1809
On any given day, the contents of Thomas Jefferson’s fridge could blow away that of any Mario Batali restaurant. The president allocated more than $16,500 to wine during his two terms from 1801 to 1809 and, according to the head steward, up to $50 a day for food. (Economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics loosely estimate that Jefferson’s $16,500 wine bill would run between $300,000 to $350,000 in today’s dollars and his $50 daily food allowance close to $1,000.)
James Buchanan
Democrat
MARCH 4, 1857–MARCH 4, 1861
When newspaperman John W. Forney spent the summer at Wheatland, James Buchanan’s farm in south central Pennsylvania, he couldn’t keep up with his hangover-immune host. “The Madeira and sherry that he has consumed would fill more than one old cellar,” the journalist later boasted. “The effect of it! There was no headache, no faltering steps, no flushed cheek . . . All was cool, as calm and as cautious and watching as in the beginning.” For Forney, these swilling sessions were “ambitious.” For Buchanan, they were “Tuesdays.”
Chester A. Arthur
Republican
September 19, 1881–MARCH 4, 1885
A former White House clerk once said of his employer that President Chester A. Arthur “never did today what he could put off until tomorrow.” The mutton-chopped leader maintained a workweek that could qualify for part-time status. Staffers witnessed Arthur carry a “property basket” that was, according to Thomas C. Reeves’s definitive Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester A. Arthur, “filled with official-looking documents which he brought with him to appointments to create the appearance of industry.” It was a trick out of the George Costanza playbook. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune said, “No president was ever so much given to procrastination as he is.”
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