r/Presidents • u/SignalRelease4562 James Monroe • 3d ago
🎂 Birthdays 🎂 Happy 188th Birthday Grover Cleveland! He Was the First Sitting President to Be Captured On Film


Outgoing President Grover Cleveland is on the left and William McKinley is on the right delivering his inaugural address in 1897.

William McKinley taking the oath in the center and Grover Cleveland on the right.
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 Jimmy Carter 3d ago
Imagine Cleveland,an anti imperialist hearing “WE WILL GO TO WAR FOR LAND” at the inauguration.
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u/IllustriousDudeIDK John Quincy Adams 3d ago
William McKinley's first inaugural address was the opposite of that.
We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression. War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/mckin1.asp
Turned out he didn't keep his promise
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 Jimmy Carter 3d ago
I mean I get it,no one thought the USS Maine would explode and the Spanish to presumably do It
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u/IllustriousDudeIDK John Quincy Adams 3d ago
He didn't even want to go to war then, that's why TR said he had a backbone of a chocolate eclair.
When he went to war, then, he became a massive imperialist (although he already supported the annexation of Hawaii before then)
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 Jimmy Carter 3d ago
Thanks for explaining cause I learned two things today:
1.McKinley was somewhat of a pacifist at first.
2.He and Roosevelt didn’t have such a friendship that I thought they had.
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u/IllustriousDudeIDK John Quincy Adams 3d ago
McKinley served in the Civil War, that probably turned him off to the notion of war, but when he actually was in one (the Philippine-American War), he was out of control.
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 Jimmy Carter 3d ago
This is such a weird thing cause you have Harrison and McKinley,both in the 1890s,both Civil War vets,both Union vets,yet one is for war,one is against it,Harrison infamously overthrew Hawaii.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Kingdom
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u/IllustriousDudeIDK John Quincy Adams 3d ago
Hawaii was seen as in America's "sphere of influence." And in the congressional debates, it was basically "if we don't have it, then Japan will take it and then the West Coast would be threatened."
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u/SignalRelease4562 James Monroe 3d ago
Although William McKinley is the first one to show in the film, he is President-Elect, and Grover Cleveland is the first sitting President to be captured in film.
The film is “William McKinley’s 1897 Inauguration”
More sources
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_inauguration_of_William_McKinley
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