Richard Folsom Cleveland
(October 28, 1897 – January 10, 1974) was an American lawyer and civic leader who spent his career with the law firm of
Semmes, Bowen & Semmes.
[
][
] He was the son of President
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
.
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...
considered him critical to the successful outcome of the
Hiss Case.
Early life
Cleveland was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the eldest son of
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
, the
22nd and 24th President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
, and
Frances Folsom
Frances Clara Cleveland Preston ( née Folsom born as Frank Clara; July 21, 1864 – October 29, 1947) was an American socialite, education activist, and the first lady of the United States from 1886 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897 as ...
. He was born nearly eight months after the end of his father's second term, and was named for his grandfather,
Richard Falley Cleveland
Richard Falley Cleveland (June 19, 1804 – October 1, 1853) was an American Congregationalist and Presbyterian minister. A graduate of Yale College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he spent most of his life as a pastor, outside of a brief per ...
. He was the next to youngest of five siblings: sisters
Ruth
Ruth (or its variants) may refer to:
Places
France
* Château de Ruthie, castle in the commune of Aussurucq in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France
Switzerland
* Ruth, a hamlet in Cologny
United States
* Ruth, Alabama
* Ruth, Ar ...
(1891–1904),
Esther
Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen ...
(1893–1980), and Marion (1895–1977), and brother
Francis Grover (1903–1995).
He attended
Phillips Exeter Academy and in 1915, he entered Princeton University, became freshman class president, and played on the freshman football team.
Career
In 1916 or 1917, Cleveland broke off studies and joined the
U.S. Marine Corps during World War I.
In 1918, he joined the U.S. diplomatic corps and served in six months in Beijing (then still called "Peking") as military attache at the U.S. legation.
Later that year, he returned to Princeton and graduated in 1919. In 1921, he obtained an MA from Princeton and then enrolled in
Harvard Law School.
Law
200px, Baltimore Trust Building
In 1924, he joined the law firm of
Semmes, Bowen & Semmes in Baltimore, Maryland. He worked there throughout his career. Though he retired in 1969, he continued to work part-time at the firm until his death in 1974.
During those years, Semmes, Bowen and Semmes occupied the twenty-first floor at 10 Light Street, at what was called the "Baltimore Trust Building," then the tallest building south of Manhattan (now the "
Bank of America Building").
[
]
Hiss Case
During the
Hiss Case (1948–1950), Cleveland represented ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' senior editor
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...
. In his memoir, Chambers recalled of him:
The names of a number of other Baltimore attorneys were given me from which to make my choice of counsel. I listened to as many first-hand opinions as possible about all of them. Then I decided on the man whom I had decided on the first time that I read over the list—Richard F. Cleveland, the youngest son of the former President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, and a partner in the Baltimore law firm of Semmes, Bowen and Semmes.
Until his name was handed to me, I had never heard of him. Yet it is hard to imagine that any other man could conceivably have filled the role that was thrust upon this quiet, deliberate, shrewd, deeply devout and deeply understanding gentleman.
From the first, he sensed that there was something missing in the Hiss Case. From the moment that I confirmed his intuition and told him what that missing factor was—espionage—he grasped the Case in its full meaning. He understood exactly what I had to do and why I was doing it.
Twice, at least, his words reaching me when he himself was not present, bore me up in critical moments. His letter, which was handed me by the FBI a few moments before I went in to testify in the first Hiss trial, offering me the support of a shared understanding and the force of his prayers, was a powerful help to me during my public evisceration by Lloyd Paul Stryker
Lloyd Paul Stryker (5 June 1885 – June 1955) was a 20th-century American attorney known as a "flamboyant criminal lawyer" and "perhaps the most celebrated criminal lawyer since Clarence Darrow", best known as chief of defense in the first crimi ...
.
The other occasion was of a kind that no man could ever forget. It occurred in December 1948, during my days before the Grand Jury, when the outcry against me was deafening. Richard Cleveland and his wife had driven from Baltimore to our farm. If any conscious factor had influenced my choice of Cleveland as my lawyer, it was my respect for his father. To my gentle wife for whom in her loneliness that dark moment was darker than for me, Cleveland said in his gentle way: "In many ways, Whittaker reminds me of my father." It was, of course, the measure of Richard Cleveland, not of me.
Chambers was impressed by Cleveland's legal acuity:
I was sitting alone one day with Richard Cleveland. Once more he led me over parts of the story. After a time, he paused and gazed off toward Druid Hill Park
Druid Hill Park is a urban park in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are marked by Druid Park Drive (north), Swann Drive and Reisterstown Road (west and south), and the Jones Falls Expressway / Interstate 83 (east).[Espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...]
," I said.
Politics
Cleveland supported the presidential candidacies of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Alfred M. Landon,
Wendell L. Wilkie, and
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
.
In 1967, he served as a delegate to the
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
Constitutional Convention.
[
]
Personal life
In 1923, Cleveland married Ellen Douglass Gailor (d. 1954), daughter of
Thomas F. Gailor
Thomas Frank Gailor (September 17, 1856 – October 3, 1935) was the third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee in the Episcopal Church and served from 1898 to 1935.
Career
Gailor was enrolled in the preparatory department of, then grad ...
, an
Episcopal bishop in Tennessee, after having met her abroad. Ellen, a teacher, was a graduate of
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
and
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where she received a master's degree.
Before divorcing in 1940 due to Ellen's alcoholism,
they had three children:
*Anne Mary Cleveland
*Thomas Grover Cleveland
(Oct 18, 1927 - Mar 20, 2020)
*Charlotte Gailor Cleveland
[
]
In 1943, he married Jessie Maxwell Black, the daughter of Capt. and Mrs. George Crosbie Black.
They had three children:
*Frances Black Cleveland
*George Maxwell Cleveland
*Margaret Folsom Cleveland
He used the desk his father had used in the White House as president, and so it remained in the offices of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes because he was still working there as emeritus partner at the firm in 1974 when he died.
Cleveland was rather relieved upon meeting Chambers, as Chambers recounted:
My first interview with Cleveland and Macmillan was chiefly to give them a chance to look me over and to listen to my story before they decided to accept me as a client. I found that I came as something of a relief. "To tell the truth," said Cleveland as we parted that first day, "Bill and I were a little worried. When we heard that you were an ex-Communist, we expected a wild-eyed man without a necktie. You are quite a surprise.
His first wife, Ellen, died in 1954.
He died in Baltimore on January 10, 1974, of chronic pulmonary illness. He is buried at Fowlers Mill Cemetery in Tamworth, New Hampshire.
See also
*
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
*
Frances Folsom
Frances Clara Cleveland Preston ( née Folsom born as Frank Clara; July 21, 1864 – October 29, 1947) was an American socialite, education activist, and the first lady of the United States from 1886 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897 as ...
*
Esther Cleveland
Esther Cleveland (September 9, 1893 – June 25, 1980) was the second child of Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States, and his wife Frances Folsom Cleveland.
Biography
She was born on September 9, 1893, in the White House. ...
*
Ruth Cleveland
Ruth Cleveland (October 3, 1891 – January 7, 1904), popularly known as Baby Ruth, was the eldest of five children born to United States President Grover Cleveland and First Lady Frances Cleveland. Her birth between Cleveland's two terms of offi ...
*
Lewis F. Allen
*
Rose Cleveland
Rose Elizabeth "Libby" Cleveland (June 13, 1846 – November 22, 1918) served as first lady of the United States from 1885 to 1886, during the first term of her brother, President Grover Cleveland's two administrations. The president was a bachel ...
*
Philippa Foot
*
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...
*
Alger Hiss
*
Lloyd Paul Stryker
Lloyd Paul Stryker (5 June 1885 – June 1955) was a 20th-century American attorney known as a "flamboyant criminal lawyer" and "perhaps the most celebrated criminal lawyer since Clarence Darrow", best known as chief of defense in the first crimi ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cleveland, Richard Folsom
1897 births
1974 deaths
Children of presidents of the United States
Harvard Law School alumni
People from Princeton, New Jersey
Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
Princeton University alumni
Military personnel from New Jersey
Lawyers from Baltimore
Cornell family
Grover Cleveland family
United States Marine Corps personnel of World War I