Complete Transcript
You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 469.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 469. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
On this Café, we’re going to talk about Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. He is the only American president to have been elected twice, but not one term after the other. Very strange and interesting, I hope. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.
Our topic for this Café is our 22nd and 24th president, Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland is the only U.S. president to have been elected president in two discontinuous terms. “Discontinuous” (discontinuous) is when two things happen, but there is a break or a space in between the two events. In this case, Grover Cleveland was elected president, then someone else was elected president, and then Grover Cleveland was elected president a second time.
Cleveland was born not in the city of Cleveland in Ohio, but in Caldwell, New Jersey, on the eastern coast of the United States in March of 1837. Caldwell is about 25 miles or so west of New York City. (That’s 40 kilometers for the rest of you.) Grover Cleveland was one of nine children. When he was still a child, he and his family moved to Buffalo, New York, which is about a hundred miles east of Toronto, Canada. Cleveland’s father died when Cleveland was only 15 years old, so he left school to help take care of his mother and sisters.
Grover Cleveland took a job working in a law office in Buffalo. He did not go to college, but he was a very smart young man, and so was able to pass the official exam to become a lawyer – what’s called the “bar exam” – in 1859. The bar exam is basically a test that you have to take in order to officially become a lawyer in a certain state. Each state has its own bar exams, although some states will allow you to move over, I think, if you pass the test in another state – not exactly sure about that. I’m not a lawyer.
Now, if you know something about American history, the year 1859 will indicate to you that this was just before the American Civil War. During the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was drafted into the military. “To be drafted” (drafted) means that the government requires you to serve in the military, typically during a time of war, even if you don’t want to join the military.
In the United States, there have been several times during which the U.S. government has drafted young men to fight in the military: World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War – all of these were examples, I believe, of times when the U.S. government drafted men, and it was just men, into the military. My father, for example, was drafted into the United States Army during World War II. He actually tried to join the Navy, another part of the military, but he didn’t get in. So he was drafted into the Army and served with the American Army in Europe. But back to Grover Cleveland.
Grover Cleveland was not in Europe. He was right here in the United States fighting during the Civil War. Now, it was common and legal during the Civil War to pay somebody else, if you had been drafted, to serve for you in the military. Since Cleveland was responsible for taking care of his family, he paid someone to serve so that he could continue working and earning money. You couldn’t do that, however, in World War I or World War II or the other wars that were fought in the twentieth century.
In 1881, several years after the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the office of mayor of Buffalo, the city in which he lived. “To be nominated” means that a political party chooses you to be its representative in the election. This was an election for the “mayor” (mayor) of Buffalo. A mayor is the person who is in charge of a city or a town. The person who leads the government in a city is called the “mayor.” The person who leads the government in a state is called a “governor.” The person who leads the whole country is called, of course, the “president.”
Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo. He became known as the “veto mayor.” A “veto” (veto) is when a mayor or governor or a president decides that he or she doesn’t like some law that has been passed by the other branch of government, or one of the other branches of government – the representative branch, the “legislative branch,” we would call it. Many cities have what is called a “city council.” The city council is like our Congress in Washington D.C., composed of different elected officials from, in this case, different parts of the city. The mayor of the city, in some cities, has the power, however, to reject, or to veto, laws that he or she doesn’t like.
Cleveland used to veto laws that usually related to how the town of Buffalo was spending its money. He said that these laws spent too much money, and it wasn’t responsible for the city. After serving one year as mayor, Cleveland was nominated for and won the office of governor. Now this is somewhat unusual, for someone to only be a mayor for a single year and then be elected to be the leader or governor of the entire state – in this case, the state of New York, which is a very large state, then and now, in terms of its population.
Cleveland was not supported by a very powerful group of politicians in New York at that time called the “Tammany Hall Democrats.” The Tammany Hall Democrats were based in New York City, and it was believed, until Cleveland was elected, that if you wanted to have any power in the state government of New York, you had to be supported by this, what we would nowadays call a “political machine” – a group of very powerful people, sometimes politicians, sometimes businessmen, sometimes both.
Cleveland, however, was so popular because of his reputation for being honest – which indeed is quite rare among politicians – that he won the office of governor without the support of these powerful people, the Tammany Hall Democrats. Cleveland’s reputation for honesty was something that other people in the country heard about, and just a few years later – and this is quite amazing – in 1884, he was nominated for the office of the president of the United States.
So imagine – in 1880, he’s basically just a lawyer, and four years later he’s being nominated or chosen to represent one of the major political parties in the United States for the election for president. Well, he won that election because the American people thought he was honest. He won the election of 1884 and began serving as president the next year. As president, Grover Cleveland tried to make government and businesses more honest. For example, he forced, or made, the railroad companies to give back over 80 million acres of land that they had acquired, they had gotten, through dishonest means or methods.
He also passed a law called the “Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.” This turned out to be one of the most important laws in the history of commerce – that is, business – in the United States. “Commerce” (commerce) is another word for buying and selling things. The Interstate Commerce Act created something called the “Interstate Commerce Commission.” “Interstate” (interstate) means between or among states. A “commission” is a official group of people who have certain power, certain responsibilities.
The Interstate Commerce Commission was a government organization that was responsible for influencing the trade between states – that is, how businesses bought and sold things from one state to another. Their job basically, in the beginning, was to make sure that the railroad companies were honest and being honest in their business dealings. However, later in American history, the Interstate Commerce Commission took on even greater importance, affecting not just the railroads, but many other kinds of businesses as well, up to and including businesses now in the twenty-first century.
In 1888, when Cleveland was running for his second term for re-election as president, the big issue in the country was something called “protective tariffs.” A “tariff” (tariff) is basically a tax that is put on some good or item that is imported into the country. So, if you are in Germany and you are selling something to the United States, it’s possible that you might have to pay a special tax in order to sell it in the United States. We would call that a “tariff.”
A “protective tariff” was a tariff that was supposed to protect American businesses that made items that were similar to the ones being imported. The thought was that if the imported items were more expensive because of this tariff, then American customers would buy the American items. This economic rationale is used still today by countries with taxes and tariffs on imports. They try to protect the businesses within their own country.
Many economists believe this is a silly and ultimately self-defeating policy. When we say something is “self-defeating,” we mean that you are actually hurting yourself rather than helping yourself, but we won’t go into that argument right here. The important thing for our story is that Grover Cleveland was against these tariffs. He was opposed to these tariffs. “To oppose” (oppose) means to be against something, to not be for something.
Cleveland said it wasn’t fair to the American customer to have these tariffs, but this of course made him very unpopular with certain businesses that wanted the tariffs, the businesses that were being protected by these tariffs. Other people in Cleveland’s political party told him that if he continued to oppose tariffs, he probably would not get reelected.
Cleveland said to these critics, these people who told him to stop supporting tariffs, “What is the use” – what’s the purpose – “of being elected or reelected unless you stand for something.” “To stand for something” is to believe in something and to defend that belief. Cleveland was not reelected. The election was close, but Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate who supported the protective tariff, was instead elected president.
Cleveland went back to New York and for the next four years worked as a lawyer there. In 1892, however, he was nominated once again by the Democratic Party for the office of president. He won that election and was again president, this time the 24th president of the United States. This was the first and, up until now, the only time that anyone has been elected president multiple times, more than once, but not “back to back” – that is to say, not one after the other, one term after the other.
Cleveland’s second term as president did not start off too well. In 1893, the United States began one of the worst economic depressions in its history. A “depression” is when a country’s economy has serious problems and lots of people are losing their jobs. Because of this, businesses were unable to sell things to people since the people didn’t have any money. Cleveland believed that the reason that the economy was in this depression was because of some of the laws that the previous president had approved.
He tried to repeal some of these laws. “To repeal” (repeal) means to reverse a law, to make something that was once legal, illegal, for example. Cleveland believed that trying to fix the economic laws was the only thing that he and the government could do to help people. He did not believe that he or the government could help people find jobs or get their money back. This unfortunately made a lot of his supporters and people who voted for him angry. The economy did begin improving in 1894, but there were still many problems and people were still suffering. People were still without jobs in many cases.
In May of 1894, the men who worked on the railroads went on strike. “To go on strike” (strike) is to refuse to work, usually because you want the company you are working for to give you more money. We associate strikes with special organizations called “unions” that organize workers and represent workers as a group. Unions at one time were somewhat powerful in the United States. They are less powerful now.
Anyway, one of the things that happened during Cleveland’s administration was this railroad strike. Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago were unhappy about how much they were being paid and how many hours they had to work each day. So, they went on strike to force Pullman to raise their wages – the amount of money they made every hour – and reduce their working hours. Many people agreed with the workers. Other people did not.
Unfortunately, the strike, as sometimes happens, became violent. People were getting hurt. On June 29th of that year, the strikers caused damage to a train that was delivering mail. This made Cleveland, as president, very angry. The United States Postal Service was at that time part of the U.S. government. If the mail could not be delivered, this meant that the government wasn’t doing its job. Cleveland and other members of his administration supported a request that the military be sent to Chicago to make sure that the trains would run.
On July 3rd, Cleveland ordered the military to go to Chicago and start operating the Pullman trains. Obviously, the people who were on strike were not very happy, and they got even more violent. They began destroying train cars and attacking the military. On July 7th, somewhere between 4 and 30 people – we’re not exactly sure – were killed in this violence. The strike ended shortly after that, and the military left Chicago on July 20th.
However, the damage to Cleveland’s reputation had been done. Your “reputation” is what other people think of you. People were angry with Cleveland for not helping the workers. They thought that he supported the businesses more than he supported the ordinary person. This isn’t necessarily true, but it was in fact what people said about Cleveland. When he tried to be reelected again in 1898, he lost the nomination to another man, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan himself would go on and lose that election anyway.
When his term was finished as president, Cleveland left Washington once more and this time moved to Princeton, New Jersey. New Jersey is right next to the state of New York. Princeton is about 45 miles or so northeast of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Princeton, New Jersey, was famous for the university, appropriately enough named Princeton University, one of the better universities in the United States, both then and now.
Cleveland gave lectures at the university and was also a trustee of the university. A “trustee” (trustee) is a person who helps an organization manage their money or helps an individual manage his money. Cleveland worked at Princeton until his death from a heart attack in 1908.
Even though Cleveland was unpopular during his second term as president, he’s still considered a great politician. People remember his honesty when he was in office and his willingness to stand for something – to say you believe in certain principles and then to act on those principles. This is, as you know, in every country something of a rare occurrence among politicians.
Now let’s answer some of the questions you have sent to us.
The first question comes from Thomas (Thomas) in France. Thomas wants to know the meaning of three – make that four – verbs: “to understand,” “to grab,” “to grasp,” and “to get” something.
Let’s start with “to understand.” “To understand” means that you comprehend the meaning of the person. You are able to listen to her or read what she has written and say to yourself, “Yes, I know what this person means. I know what they were trying to tell me.” That’s “to understand” something. Of course, sometimes we understand things about the world that no one tells us, but that we are able to figure out on our own.
“To grab” (grab) doesn’t really have anything to do with the verb “to understand.” It’s a very different meaning. “To grab” means to take something in your hand suddenly, often with a certain force. “I grabbed the pen” means I picked up a pen and I held it firmly, perhaps. Sometimes we use this verb “to grab” in other contexts. We might talk about “grabbing a bite to eat,” meaning going out in getting something to eat some food. But the general meaning of “grab” is to take something into your hands.
“To grasp” (grasp) has a couple of different meanings, one similar to “to understand” and one similar to “to grab.” “To grasp” can mean the same as “to grab” – take something into your hand, that is – but it can also mean the same as “to understand.” “I grasp what you are telling me.” I understand what you are telling me. I comprehend what you are telling me.
The fourth verb, really a phrasal verb, is “to get” something, or “to get it,” we sometimes say. “To get it” means to understand something, to really grasp it in the sense of understanding the meaning of the person. It’s a bit more informal and is sometimes used to talk about understanding certain things that other people don’t understand. You can use it in a number of different contexts.
For example, you could talk about a politician who agrees with what you believe in. You may describe that politician as a person who “gets it,” who really understands something that other people do not seem to understand. You could also say to, for example, your girlfriend or boyfriend, “You don’t get it, do you?” There it is used to indicate that the other person is stupid, really, or doesn’t really understand the whole situation the way that he or she should understand it by looking at the evidence.
In the past tense, we often use this phrasal verb to mean that you understand something that someone is explaining to you, often instructions or directions. If someone tells you how to cook a hamburger, for example, you could say “Oh, okay, I got it.” I understand what you have explained to me. “Got,” of course, is the past tense of the verb “get.”
When I was growing up, there was a somewhat funny expression: “Get it? Got it? Good.” If you are explaining something to someone and you say “Get it?” as a question, you are asking if the person understood it. “Get it? “Got it?” Good” is when you explain something to someone and you don’t want to give any more explanation. It’s often something you are telling the person to do, perhaps something the person doesn’t want to do.
I should add that there is another meaning of “get it” in the context of a telephone or a door. If someone calls you on the telephone, you might say “I’ll get it,” meaning I’ll answer the telephone. If someone knocks on your door, you might also say “I’ll get it” – you are indicating to another person that you will be the person to walk over and open the door or pick up the telephone and speak to the person calling.
Our next question comes from Giam Paolo (Giam Paolo) in Italy. The question has to do with a noun, “hood” (hood). There is a very popular children’s story called “Little Red Riding Hood,” but you also see the word “hood” in other words, like “girlhood” and “neighborhood.” So, what exactly does “hood” mean? Let’s start with the children’s story “Little Red Riding Hood.” A “hood” in that case refers to something that covers your head and your neck, usually attached to a coat or a jacket.
When I was growing up in Minnesota, it was always cold in the wintertime. It’s still cold in the wintertime in Minnesota, which is why I live in Los Angeles now, but when I lived in Minnesota, I had a big coat and the coat had a hood on it. So, when it got really cold, I could put the hood over my head to keep my head warm. That’s the “hood” in “Little Red Riding Hood.” “Hood” in a word like “neighborhood,” however, means something different. “Hood” there refers to a condition or a quality of something. So, a “neighborhood” is an area with your neighbors – people who live next to you.
You could also talk about “boyhood” or “girlhood.” “Boyhood” is the condition of being a boy. “Girlhood” refers to the condition or the status or the situation or even the quality of being a girl. We have a word in American English, “statehood.” “Statehood” is when a territory becomes an official state of the United States. That hasn’t happened in more than 50 years, but certainly in the early part of our country’s history, you heard a lot of people talking about statehood.
A third and final meaning of “hood” is to describe a usually young man who does bad things, who breaks the law. When we use “hood” in that way, it’s actually short for a slightly longer word: “hoodlum” (hoodlum). It’s not as popular nowadays to talk about “hoods” or “hoodlums” – people would probably say “gangster” or “someone who’s in a gang” or a “gang member.” A “gang,” of course, is a small group of people who are involved in some sort of criminal activity – breaking the law, stealing things, selling drugs, those sorts of things.
Finally, a short question from Yuri (Yuri) in Ukraine. Yuri wants to know about the pronunciation of three different words – actually, four different words. I’m having problems counting today. The words are “economic,” “economists,” “electric,” and “electricity.”
Yuri’s question has to do with the first sound of those words, which I pronounced as short vowels. You can also pronounce these four words using long vowels at the beginning. Instead of “EHconomists,” you could say “EEconomists,” although that’s not very popular. Instead of “EHlectric,” you could say “EElectric,” and instead of “EHlectricity,” you could say “EElectricity.”
“EElectricity” and “EEconomic” are more common than “EElectric” and” “EEconomists.” There, the short form of the vowel is more commonly used.
What’s the difference? Well, there is no difference in meaning. It’s just different ways that people pronounce the words.
I would like to tell you that there is a simple rule for determining whether it’s a short “e” or a long “e,” but unfortunately, this being English, there is no such rule.
From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on the English Café.
ESL Podcast’s English Café was written and produced by Dr. Jeff McQuillan and Dr. Lucy Tse. Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
Glossary
discontinuous – when two things happen, one after the other, but there is a break or period of time between the two
* Both sisters attended the same university, but graduated in discontinuous years: 2000 and 2004.
to be drafted – to be required by the government to serve in the military in a time of war
* The last time any Americans were drafted was during the Vietnam War.
to nominate – to be chosen by a political party to be its representative in a political office; to be selected by a group of people to represent them
* Yentzu was nominated by her fellow students to speak to the university president about their concerns.
mayor – an elected official who is in charge of a town or city
* The mayor organized a citywide parade to congratulate the winning sports team.
to veto – when an elected official says that he or she will not sign a bill (proposal for a law) that has already been approved by another branch (part) of government; when someone refuses to approve of something other people have already decided on
* Masha, Natalie, and Sven agreed that they should all go to Guy’s Pizza for dinner but Olaf vetoed that idea because he said Vito’s had better pizza.
commerce – trade; the business of buying and selling
* Commerce between the two countries was at its highest in 50 years, which benefited both of their economies.
tariff – a tax that is put on a particular good or item, especially when brought to sell from another country
* Many countries have tariffs on rice, wheat, and flour to protect its own farmers.
to oppose – to not support; to be against something or someone
* Alec wanted to sell their family company, but his sister, Nicolette, opposed the idea because she wanted to lead the company herself.
depression – when a country’s economy has serious problems and many people lose their jobs and often, their savings
* During the Great Depression of 1929, many people were forced to leave their homes because they had no money to pay the rent.
to repeal – to reverse a law; to make something that was once a law not a law anymore
* In 1933, Congress repealed the laws making the sale and manufacture of alcohol illegal.
to go on strike – when a group of people refuses to do something because they want an organization or another group of people to change
* When the subway workers went on strike, everyone who lived in the city was forced to walk to work.
trustee – a person who helps an organization or an individual manage their money and decide how the money should be used
* The trustees met and decided that it would be appropriate for Amir to use some of the money in his trust to buy a house.
to understand – for one’s mind to perceive and comprehend the intended meaning of something, such as words, a language, or a speaker
* Meli didn’t really understand the math assignment and had to get Sarah’s help.
to grab – to grasp; to seize; to take in one’s hand suddenly and roughly
* I know you’re scared, but stop grabbing my sweater. You’ll ruin it!
to grasp – to understand; to comprehend; to hold tightly in one’s hand
* It’s difficult to grasp these difficult new ideas when the professor speaks so quickly.
to get (it) – to understand; to comprehend
* I get it. You’re trying to tell me you don’t want to go without hurting my feelings.
-hood – suffix used for forming nouns to indicate a condition or quality, or a collection or group
* How are Dina and Hamid enjoying parenthood as first-time parents?
What Insiders Know
U.S. Bills in Large Denominations
Currently, the United States prints its “bills” (paper money) in seven “denominations” (amounts) of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. There was a time, however, when higher denominations were printed for specific “transactions” (actions related to buying and selling).
In 1861, the U.S. government issued “interest-bearing notes” (money used as a loan between a lender and a borrower) in four different denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000, and in 1878, they were released as United States “notes” (an older term for paper money). (The notes were larger in size than current bills. It wasn’t until 1929 that paper money were produced in today’s size.)
These larger denominations were meant to be used by banks and the U.S. government for large transactions. However, “unlawful” (against the law) activities such as “drug trafficking” (selling and buying large amounts of illegal drugs) and “money laundering” (hiding the source of illegally-made money) often used these bills as well. This was one of the main reasons the government decided to stop producing these bills.
These higher denomination bills were last printed on December 27, 1945 and were officially discontinued on July 4, 1969. Most of the bills started to disappear and only private collectors were successful in “preserving” them, or keeping them in their original condition.
One example is Benny Binion, owner of Binion’s Horseshoe “casino” (place for entertainment where people play games of chance in hopes of winning money) in Las Vegas. Binion preserved 100 pieces of the $10,000 bill and displayed them in a clear “case” (box on display). Unfortunately, Binion’s collection no longer exists since it was sold to other “collectors” (people who buy valuable things for their own enjoyment or as an investment).