Dreamers and Deceivers

To Brent Ashworth, Harlan Crowe, and David Barton—three of the greatest Americans I know. These men have dedicated their lives to collecting and preserving our history so that future generations can hold the real story of America in their hands.

Author’s Note

1. Grover Cleveland: The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing President

2. “I Did Not Kill Armstrong”: The War of Wills in the Early Days of Radio

3. Woodrow Wilson: A Masterful Stroke of Deception

4. Streets of Gold: Charles Ponzi and the American Scheme

5. He Loved Lucy: The Tragic Genius of Desi Arnaz, the Inventor of the Rerun

6. The Muckraker: How a Lost Letter Revealed Upton Sinclair’s Deception

7. Alan Turing: How the Father of the Computer Saved the World for Democracy

8. The Spy Who Turned to a Pumpkin: Alger Hiss and the Liberal Establishment That Defended a Traitor

9. The City of Tomorrow: Walt Disney’s Last and Lost Dream

10. “Make It Great, John”: How Steve Jobs and John Lasseter Changed History at Pixar

Appendix: Letter from Upton Sinclair

About Glenn Beck

About the Writing of This Book

I
t’s easy to look back at our history and picture it as a simple collection of events: a war, a constitution, an election, another war, and so on. But history isn’t really about events—those are just labels we give to things. It’s the people who really matter.

People can spend their time working for good or evil. They can be heroes or villains. They can choose to fight for love and courage and truth, or they can fight for their own egos and agendas.

Sometimes, even in retrospect, it’s not that easy to figure out who a person really was. Steve Jobs, for example, features prominently in this book as a dreamer, but he was certainly not without his flaws. And, as we now know from accounts published after his death, Jobs was not always a good man. He certainly wasn’t always a fair one. According to Walter Isaacson’s book
Steve Jobs
, Jobs once said some pretty nasty things about me and even tried to get me fired from Fox News.

But when I look back at Steve Jobs’s life, I see a man who tried his best and whose contributions will leave a lasting mark on the world. Perhaps, in the end, the lesson is that it’s as important to say “I tried” as it is to say “I succeeded.”

My admiration for Steve Jobs’s contributions demonstrates one of the best things about America: We live in a country where agreeing with someone and admiring them don’t have to be mutually exclusive. There are plenty of people who have done things I admire even though I don’t agree with some of their actions or beliefs.

Henry Ford is a good example. He was a horrible anti-Semite, a man who blamed the Jews for almost every evil in the world. In fact, Ford is the only American mentioned in Hitler’s
Mein Kampf
. But Henry Ford
was also a genius when it came to perfecting the automobile assembly line—an innovation (originally conceived by Ransom Olds) that changed the world.

I don’t have to agree with someone, or even like them, to be able to recognize their achievements. In fact, instituting some kind of likability litmus test leads us down a pretty dangerous path toward a modern version of McCarthyism. I don’t like what you stand for so I use my power to try to take you down. It’s something that is seriously being proposed by many on the Left, and even some on the Right—and it’s got to stop.

What if instead we all agreed to no more blacklists. No more blind loyalty oaths. No more trying to take people down or get them fired simply because we disagree with them.

Steve Jobs talked a lot about his belief that the axis in America is no longer “liberal and conservative,” but “constructive and destructive.” I could not agree more. But I think where we disagree is in identifying
who
gets to decide which category a person falls into. Thomas Edison was not a good guy—but would you prefer he had been blacklisted and put out of business before he ever got started? Would you give up everything he created simply because you didn’t like something about his personality or his political views?

I, for one, am glad Steve Jobs lived and created what he did. He changed our world for the better. I would never sacrifice that because he and I didn’t agree on politics.

That same rule applies to many of the people we selected for this book. I’m sure there are plenty of “deceivers” who were actually very nice and generous people. The reverse is also true: I have no doubt that some of the “dreamers” we feature were selfish or malicious. The goal of this book is not to generically categorize someone’s entire life; it’s only to look at an often narrow slice of their accomplishments.

As with the previous book in this series (
Miracles and Massacres
), I attempted to adhere to a few guiding principles when deciding which people to include. I tried to select:

1. People whose names are mostly familiar but who are either misunderstood or who have a side to their lives that is not well known;

2. People with stories that have messages or lessons with clear relevance to today;

3. People who represent both sides of our past—the selfless and the selfish; the dreamers and the deceivers.

There is a great mix of people with stories that I think will really surprise you. From incredible deceptions perpetrated by sitting presidents, to the world-changing genius of people like Desi Arnaz, Alan Turing, Walt Disney, and, yes, Steve Jobs.

Finally, just as with
Miracles and Massacres
, these stories have been written in a style that puts you right next to the characters. It’s my hope that you’ll feel like you’re reading a novel more than a history book because we learn best when we engage with stories, not when we try to memorize meaningless details.

Once you’ve finished each story, I urge you to read the section “About the Writing of This Book,” as it will give you a good sense for the writing process and will explain what we took from the historical record and what we imagined or dramatized for the sake of crafting a compelling story.

Laos Deo,

Dallas, Texas

2014

Albany, New York

July 21, 1884

Governor Grover Cleveland stared in disbelief at the front page of the
Buffalo Telegraph
. Just ten days earlier he had received the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and given his reputation for unwavering honesty, he knew that he had a real chance to win. His Republican opponent, the notoriously corrupt James G. Blaine—a man who would soon become known as “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the Continental liar from the state of Maine!”—was vulnerable. If Cleveland managed to parlay his sterling reputation into a victory in November, he would be the first Democrat elected since before the Civil War.

But now, as Cleveland stared in disgust at the newspaper sitting on his desk, victory looked a lot less likely. A T
ERRIBLE
T
ALE
, screamed the morning’s headline. A D
ARK
C
HAPTER IN A
P
UBLIC
M
AN
’
S
H
ISTORY
.

The
Telegraph
’s article told the story of Maria Halpin, a widow in Cleveland’s hometown of Buffalo, who had a child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland.

Cleveland, a bachelor, had never acknowledged that his former lover’s child was his. After all, several of his drinking buddies had also shared Maria’s bed—could he really be sure of his paternity? But those friends were all married, so Cleveland had agreed to give the child his last name and his financial support. When the boy was sent to an orphanage after Maria’s excessive drinking and deteriorating emotional state led to her stay in a mental institution, Cleveland had dutifully paid the orphanage bill of five dollars a week.

Now, in the midst of Cleveland’s presidential campaign, the nine-year-old child’s very existence threatened to derail his White House hopes—unless he could find a way to turn this crisis into an opportunity.

As Cleveland read through the article, much of which was exaggerated and sensationalized, the governor began to formulate a strategy. The American people, he reasoned, would forgive a sexual indiscretion. In fact, if he was completely honest about something so embarrassing—something so many men lied about almost out of habit—voters might actually
reward
him. His candor would reinforce the trustworthiness that had been his calling card ever since he’d been elected to replace Buffalo’s corrupt mayor in 1881 and New York’s corrupt governor in 1882. Now, in a meteoric rise to national prominence, that same forthrightness would save his nomination for president of the United States.

“Write this down, and send it to all my friends in Buffalo,” Cleveland ordered his press secretary and close confidant, Daniel Lamont. “I have a simple message for anyone who is asking anything about Maria Halpin.” His voice now boomed with confidence and authority. “Whatever you do . . . tell the truth!”

•  •  •

Cleveland’s strategy worked perfectly. By the narrowest of margins, and, in large part thanks to the trust inspired by his response to the Maria Halpin scandal, the governor of New York was elected president of the United States of America. Joseph Pulitzer, of the
New York World,
spoke for millions when he explained the four reasons he supported Grover Cleveland: “1. He is an honest man; 2. He is an honest man; 3. He is an honest man; 4. He is an honest man.”

Nine Years Later

From Washington, D.C., to New York City

July 1, 1893

The president grimaced as he climbed into the presidential carriage for the trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Baltimore & Potomac train station. It took quite an effort for the six-foot, one-inch, three-hundred-pound chief executive to get from the ground to his seat. Even though Grover Cleveland was more than strong enough, the fifty-six-year-old didn’t enjoy physical exertion. He’d once told Daniel Lamont, who was now serving as secretary of war, that even walking was an annoyance to be avoided whenever possible.

Lamont was at Cleveland’s side for the ride to the train station, just as he had been for the better part of the last decade. The president thought of his friend, who was fourteen years younger, as the son he’d never had. Lamont even looked in some ways like a slightly thinner and balder version of Cleveland, right down to the bushy walrus mustache they both sported. Unfailingly loyal, Lamont and Cleveland shared an affinity for whiskey, cigars, hunting, and fishing.

Lamont was by Cleveland’s side when he won the presidential election in 1884, and he was there when Cleveland lost the White House in 1888, despite having won the popular vote. Four years later, Lamont reprised his role as press secretary in Cleveland’s bid to reclaim the presidency. They celebrated together in 1892 when Cleveland defeated Benjamin Harrison by a landslide.

In his second term Cleveland promoted his friend to secretary of war, but the president continued to rely on Lamont’s judgment and counsel in all critical matters of state. First among those matters was the “money question.”

The Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the United States Treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver each month and to print large amounts of paper currency that could be redeemed for that silver. The consequence was inflation—wild, catastrophic, panic-inducing inflation. By Cleveland’s inauguration in March, the United States was in the midst of the worst economic recession in its history: the aptly labeled Panic of 1893.