We Need More Statesmen Like William Henry Harrison

On this President’s day, let’s
have a shout-out to William Henry Harrison, a man who was a true
statesman as president of the United States. He was a statesman, at
least, by the definition of Bloom County‘s Opus the
penguin, who noted, “Statesmen are dead politicians. Lord knows we
need more statesmen.” Inaugurated on March 4, 1841, Harrison

died of pneumonia just one month later.

Harrison’s official
biography on the White House website notes:

When he arrived in Washington in February 1841, Harrison let
Daniel Webster edit his Inaugural Address, ornate with classical
allusions. Webster obtained some deletions, boasting in a jolly
fashion that he had killed “seventeen Roman proconsuls as dead as
smelts, every one of them.”

Webster had reason to be pleased, for while Harrison was
nationalistic in his outlook, he emphasized in his Inaugural that
he would be obedient to the will of the people as expressed through
Congress.

But before he had been in office a month, he caught a cold that
developed into pneumonia. On April 4, 1841, he died — the first
President to die in office—and with him died the Whig program.

This means the the new president had time to make a flowery
speech—and who doesn’t like a good speech, especialy in the days
before national television networks, when nobody outside D.C. even
had the ability to actually listen to them. He then had the good
grace to expire before actually doing anything. Then, his vice
president and successor, John Tyler, broke
with Whig policies (which were a mixed and even incoherent bag, but
generally favored protectionism and a stronger national government)
and also prevented much from getting done.

Let’s hear it for a statesman!