During President’s Grover Cleveland’s second term, there was no staff in the White House, and the president only worked with one secretary and six clerks. Despite disapproval from the people, Cleveland ensured that the White House remained a forbidden territory and did little to make it beautiful. At that time, the White House was understaffed, and the facilities of the nation were scarce. During Cleveland’s reign, the president was perceived as a fellow citizen and was not accorded any celebrity status. Other politicians also viewed him as an equal branch of the government and his strength was regarded with suspicion. In the late 19^th Century, there were string allegiances to Republicans and Democrats. During the elections, 75% of the voters voted in President William McKinley after he used appealing motion pictures for his campaign to woo in voters (Gould 12). By this time, President Cleveland’s powers had already been weakened, and McKinley was taking steps towards reviving the glory of the presidency. This paper examines the reason why author Gould in his book termed ‘McKinley and Roosevelt’s presidencies as the age of Cortelyou.’ The paper will also investigate how influential George Cortelyou was in modernizing the Presidency under the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt Administrations.

Although McKinley had won the presidency through backing the gold standard, he was still stereotyped as being weak as a result of him not writing down his motives (Gould13).  He went back to Washington to re-establish the president’s powers and traveled across the nation to create strong support for his policies and to personalize the concept of the presidency. During his second term in office, this is the period that is majorly referred to as the ‘age of Cortelyou.’ During this time, McKinley’s secretary John Porter felt that the position was too low for him. For this reason, George Cortelyou actively felt the position and took over many of the duties. Cortelyou refurbished the way the whole presidency operated and played a major part of the way modern presidency in America operates (Gould15). Cortelyou became McKinley’s closest advisor, and in 1990 he received the full secretary title. He significantly improved the systematic record keeping which made paperwork easier to manage and kept valuable administrative records safe during the war. Cortelyou was instrumental in helping McKinley foster healthy beneficial relationships with the press and even gave the Washington Press their own office space in the White House. He also increased telephone reliance and installed fifteen new connection lines which allowed McKinley significant capacity for policy supervision (Gould 20). He also took office on White House second floor during the American-Spanish War and transformed the room in to a war room. He also ensured that the stenographers provided the press with full speech transcripts and acted both as press secretary and chief of staff.

Because of Cortelyou’s influence, McKinley was able to achieve what his predecessors were not able to. For example, he capitalized of the crisis of foreign policies to extend his powers beyond limits, set up military governments in the Philippines and Cuba. He unapologetically wielded presidential powers during the war, started using intellectuals and commissions to make administrative policies, and made relations with the press to come from the White House and not from Congress. All this was made possible because of Cortelyou.

After McKinley’s assassination, Roosevelt took over the office and was always viewed as the youngest president who was already a celebrity in his own right. Roosevelt however contrary to McKinley spent less time on phone calls and opted to speak to the press in person. Roosevelt greatly respected Cortelyou, and for this reason, Cortelyou managed to soften Roosevelt’s heart and strictness with the press. Though Cortelyou exited the White House in 1903, he ensured that he wrote down the presidential procedures in a 14-page pamphlet (Gould 24). In it, he set the guidelines stating the precise staff duties, specifying the styles to be used in documentation, and establishing the lines of authority starting with the secretary of the president. After Cortelyou’s departure from the White House, Roosevelt took a lot of time modifying his image to the press and even inviting selected journalists for individual shaving sessions.

Cortelyou was extremely instrumental in modernizing the McKinley and Roosevelt presidencies in some ways. He helped the presidents to achieve celebrity status and honor which was unheard of during the Cleveland presidency and the presidencies before. He managed to rebuild the relationships between the presidents and the press making it easy for communication about state affairs. Cortelyou was able to formulate a systematic technique of documentation making it easy for the presidents and the government to access and organize state paperwork and to also keep safe administrative documents during the war which would otherwise have been ruined (Gould 27). Similarly, because of Cortelyou, the presidents were able to foster positive foreign relationships thus ensuring that the country maintained an upper hand over other nations.

To conclude, Cortelyou was instrumental in making the White House accessible to all people and not just the president. This is different from the ancient presidency of President Cleveland who made the White House a no-go zone for all people. Cortelyou ensured that the president hired more staff to the White House to handle the daily operations ensuring that the White House was not understaffed. Finally, Cortelyou ensured that President Roosevelt gave the White House a facelift making it a grand place where all visitors from all nations could be hosted. The most fundamental achievement of Cortelyou in modernizing the presidency was fostering positive relations with the press and changing the way the operations of the White House were conducted.

Works cited

Gould, Lewis L. Modern American Presidency. University Press of Kansas, 2009.

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