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Boyhood in Fayetteville, NY
Inauguration

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Click below to listen to the song "Democrats, Good Democrats", campaign song from Cleveland's first presidential campaign in 1884.
Recording copyright Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 1999.
Click here to play
Baby Ruth and Baby McKee
We are the nation’s pets you see,
And ev’rybody speaks of us;
In politics we don’t agree,
The papers all our views discuss,
Now, Baby Ruth’s a Democrat,
And thinks high tariff’s a mistake;
But I’m a born Republican
No free trade arguments can shake!

Chorus:
We’re Baby Ruth and Baby McKee,
Lively specimens, you’ll agree
Just as happy as happy can be,
We’ll run the nation’s Presidency!
Which of us wins you’ll very soon see,
Baby Ruth and Baby McKee.

The White House is my proper place,
I mean to get there if I can!
With Tammany, I’m in the race,
To please the Mugwumps is my plan!
If all the women in the land
Could have a vote, I’m sure I’d win;
For Babe McKee quite long enough
The White House crib has slumbered in!
(Chorus)
I mean to stay for one term more,
Now don’t forget that, Baby Ruth!
You tried to get there once before,
But failed, now isn’t that the truth!
You Democrats will take back seats,
Wait till November next, and see;
And then “innocuous desuetude,”
Will, Baby-Ruth, your portion be!

(Chorus)

Ha! Ha! I’ve got the inside track,
The mugwump tribe I captivate,
Their solid vote I shall not lack,
‘Tis Destiny that steers my Fate!
But let’s be friends, whoever wins,
The Nation’s pets we are, you see;
We’re both True Blue Americans,
You Baby Ruth, I, Baby McKee!

This song, written in 1892 by Geo. Cooper and Adam Geibel, was originally presented at the New York State Fair, is about Grover’s eldest daughter, Ruth, and the grandson of Benjamin Harris, McKee. Benjamin Harris was President in between Cleveland’s two terms.
Above: Various marches written in honor of Grover Cleveland. These pieces, and more, are all housed in the Motto Sheet Music Collection. Below:  This article was published in the Syracuse Herald in the evening of June 24th, 1908.

Death was due to heart failure…While Mr. Cleveland had been seriously ill from time to time, the announcement of his death came like a thunderbolt to those who had been watching his illness.
Last night there was a slight flurry among the friends of the Clevelands that something was seriously wrong with the ex-President…Mrs. Cleveland…said that there was no occasion for alarm…
…Mrs. Cleveland is prostrated, and only a few of the sympathetic neighbors have been able to see her…
      

Among the messages of condo-
lence delivered to-day to Frances
Folsom Cleveland, widow of the de-
ceased former President, was the
following:
“Fayetteville, N. Y. June 26, 1908.
“Mrs. Grover Cleveland,
    Princeton, N. J.,
     “In behalf of the citizens of Fay-
etteville, the early home of our for-
mer President, I wish to extend to
[y]ou our tenderest sympathy in this
[ho]ur of your greatest sorrow.
    WILLIAM MORRISON,
        Village President.”



Both of the above articles were published shortly after Grover’s death in the Post Standard. Fayetteville Mourns Him has some remembrances from childhood schoolmates.
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