This is part of a series called Presidential Free Association. I post the first word that comes to mind when I hear the name of the president, along with a brief explanation.
Cancer
During his second term as president, Grover Cleveland underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his upper jaw. The surgery was kept secret from the public so as to not effect support for Cleveland's monetary policy. The country was in the midst of a panic, and switching to the silver standard was a topic of fierce debate. Cleveland supported the gold standard, but his Vice President wanted to switch to the silver standard; Cleveland worried that if his illness was made public, Congress would shift its support away from him.
Coincidently, when the secret surgery came to light, Cleveland and his supporters maintained that he had just had a very large tooth pulled...and of course it was necessary to pull this tooth on a steamer in the middle of the ocean with the utmost secrecy.
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