Who’s Who In Presidentville

Anyone, as our civics teacher was fond of pointing out, can live in Presidentville—provided he is a lawyer or a military hero, that is. Twenty-four of our Chief Executives were educated in the law, although they all did not necessarily practice or even graduate from law school. And of the eight non-lawyers who initially won the Presidency in their own right, only Harding and Hoover appeared before the voters without impressive war records. Nevertheless, the White House has been occupied by some extremely versatile men, many of whom pursued a variety of careers during their lifetimes. Here are the identifications, according to the numbers on our drawing. 1-John Tyler, chancellor of William and Mary, lawyer. 2-Woodrow Wilson, teacher, president of Princeton, lawyer. 3-Thomas Jefferson, surveyor, architect, lawyer, author. 4-James Madison, lawyer. 5-George Washington, tobacco planter, surveyor, soldier. 6-James Monroe, lawyer. 7-James A. Garfield, cahalboat boy, teacher, president of Hiram College, lawyer, lay preacher. 8-William Henry Harrison, farmer and soldier. 9-Benjamin Harrison (born on his grandfather’s Ohio farm), lawyer. 10-John Adams, lawyer and author. 11-John Quincy Adams, like his father a lawyer and author. 12-Lyndon B. Johnson, radio and television station owner, teacher, public official. 13-Rutherford B. Hayes, lawyer, soldier. 14-James Buchanan, lawyer. 15-William Howard Taft, lawyer, journalist, teacher, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. 16-Andrew Johnson, tailor, soldier. 17-Martin Van Buren, lawyer. 18-Andrew Jackson, frontier lawyer, real estate speculator, Indian fighter. 19-Franklin Delano Roosevelt, lawyer, banker, public official. 20-Theodore Roosevelt, rancher, soldier, and, like his distant cousin Franklin, an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 21-John F. Kennedy, author, congressman, PT-boat commander. 22-Warren Gamaliel Harding, publisher of the Marion, Ohio, Star . 23-Millard Fillmore, lawyer, wool carder. 24-Franklin Pierce, lawyer, soldier. 25-Ulysses S. Grant, worked in father’s leather goods store prior to Civil War, soldier, author. 26-James K. Polk, lawyer. 27-Dwight D. Eisenhower, career army officer, president of Columbia University, author. 28-Calvin Coolidge, lawyer, public official, and governor of Massachusetts; while campaigning for President, he was photographed pitching hay in Vermont in street shoes. 29-Grover Cleveland, lawyer, teacher, public official—as sheriff of Erie County, N.Y., he officiated at two hangings. 30-William McKinley, lawyer, teacher, soldier. 31-Chester A. Arthur, lawyer, teacher, soldier, and Collector of the Port of New York. 32-Herbert C. Hoover, mining engineer in Australia, North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, public official, author. 33-Harry S. Truman, haberdasher, soldier, presiding county judge, author. 34-Abraham Lincoln, lawyer, rail splitter. 35-Zachary Taylor, soldier, farmer, land speculator.