The first volleys in America’s “vilest” presidential campaign were fired on July 21, 1884, when a small Buffalo paper exposed a shocking personal scandal involving ihe Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland, then governor of New York. Cleveland, big, slow-moving, forthright, “foursquare,” had become a popular image of decency and public honesty; he had been elected on a reform ticket by a 200,000 majority over an entrenched Republican machine, and he was expected to cleanse New York of corruption. It now appeared that in 1871 he had seduced a widow, one Maria Halpin, fathered her child, and refused to marn her. Cleveland did not deny this adventure. When friends asked him how to reply to the scandal, he said. “Tell the truth.”

Rumors grew and spread: that the Governor was a habitual drunkard and libertine; that in Albany he kept “women” convenient to the executive mansion; that he was being secretly treated for a “malignant” disease. … Reminders of his bastard boy were chanted through the streets in great Republican parades:

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