June 28, 1908

n this Sunday, June 28, 1908, The Times is full of politics, past and present. At left, the editorial page praises Frances Folsom Cleveland, the widow of President Grover Cleveland, as the ideal of the American woman. Even making allowances for Victorian hyperbole, this piece is rather remarkable: "In the shadow of her great grief she stands out even more luminously than she did in her lovely youth when, bright-eyed and light-stepping as the fawn, she entered the doors of the White House to become the first lady of the land. "Now that the passing years have made the college girl a wife, mother and widow, her life may be said to be fairly rounded out, and she may be regarded as a character formed and builded to completion...."  Mind you, we are talking about a woman in her mid-40s who was far younger than her husband; they married when she was 21 and he was 49. In fact, she remarried in 1913 and lived until 1947. Meanwhile, the paper hasn't wasted any effort trying to hide its support for Republican presidential nominee William Taft, above, and has done nothing to conceal its disdain for Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan in its editorial cartoons (at top) or in its coverage by Harry Carr, at left. Email me