Arts & Architecture


The Reverend James Smith Bush (1825-1889)
 

Presidents and Also-rans at Grace Cathedral

By Michael Lampen,
Grace Cathedral's Archivist

With national focus on a new President of the United States, it is of interest to look back over presidents who visited, had connections to, or are depicted in, Grace Cathedral. Vice presidents, also-rans and one pre-cathedral commander-in-chief also have links. The list is decidedly Republican, with a few exceptions.

The Reverend James Smith Bush (1825-1889), ancestor of the Presidents Bush, was rector of Grace Church, San Francisco, from 1867 to 1872. His father, Obadiah Bush, spent time as a gold miner in California. Young James trained as a Presbyterian minister but family financial troubles led him to abandon the ministry for law, founding the firm Root and Bush (pun intended) in Rochester, N.Y. He married Sarah Freeman, a devout Episcopalian, in 1851. Her death a year and a half later changed his life. Bush prepared for the Episcopal ministry, and his first pastorate was Grace Church, Orange, N.J., where he met and married Harriet Fay, known for her keen intellect. In 1865 Bush served Commodore Vanderbildt as his secretary and chaplain. They visited San Francisco and Bush returned two years later, accepting the call to Grace Church, where he served well for five years. In 1871 he accepted the call of the Church of the Ascension, Staten Island, where he remained until 1884. Holding increasingly Unitarian views, he resigned and moved to Concord, MA, and later Ithaca, N.Y. Bush taught in the Unitarian Church Sunday school there and at Cornell University until his death. His second son, Samuel Prescott Bush, was the father of Senator Prescott S. Bush, who was father and grandfather of the Presidents George Bush. The senior President Bush, an Episcopalian, is a friend of retired Bishop of California William Swing, once a Washington D. C. rector.

In 1852 Lieutenant Ulysses Grant arrived in San Francisco. In 1854, at remote Fort Humboldt in Northern California, he was given the option of court martial or resignation for having been found drunk on duty. He resigned. In 1879, after victory as Civil War Union commander, and two terms as president, the now retired Grant returned to the city during a 'round-the-world excursion. He was fêted by fellow-Republican Charles Crocker, railroad magnate, in his Nob Hill mansion on the future Grace Cathedral site. The gala dinner had local newspapers buzzing for days.

As a young man, Herbert Hoover studied mining engineering at Stanford University (class of 1895) and was noted for his humanitatian work following World War I. Hoover became a good friend of William H. Crocker, cathedral site donor. The future president, a Quaker, was a backer of Grace Cathedral from its initial fund drive, and accepted the post of honorary chair of the (non-sectarian) endorsement committee in 1928, while he was President Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce. Hoover issued a statement which read in part, "I hope and believe that not only the people of the city, but Californians throughout the country, irrespective of creed, will give practical support to the plan." In retirement, Hoover attended the funeral of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst at Grace Cathedral in 1951. Hearst himself had briefly been a presidential aspirant (1904). Also present at the funeral was John Garner, former Speaker of the House and Franklin D. Roosevelt's first vice president.


New York Governor John Dewey at Grace Cathedral (1941)
 

Also-rans have also visited. On a bright Sunday in September, 1948, New York Governor John Dewey attended services at Grace Cathedral during a campaign swing though the state. Dean Lovgren greeted him at the cathedral door and showed him to his seat. Dewey later achieved awkward fame when an eager newspaper editor printed an incorrect headline. President Truman raised it gleefully for cameras on the day of his election; "Dewey Beats Truman". The Republican National Committee met in San Francisco in July, 1964, and chose Barry Goldwater as their candidate. Shortly before his nomination, the outspoken Arizona Senator attended Sunday service at Grace Cathedral. In November, 1994, President Bill Clinton, staying at the nearby Fairmont Hotel, attended Sunday morning service in the cathedral's Chapel of Grace. Security was heavy. His brief impromptu visit was the only one made by a sittng president to Grace Cathedral.

Finally we can add a few presidents commemorated in the cathedral's furnishings and garden. Taylor Street, the east border of the cathedral close, was named for General Zachary ("Rough and Ready") Taylor, hero of the Mexican-American War and later president. Colorful Virginia Creeper once graced the walls of the former Church Divinity School/ Cathedral House (demolished 1993) grown from a sprig brought from Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. President Washington's framed image appears on the wall of Fort Tejon, California, in the Bishop Kip mural (north aisle, DeRosen, 1949).


Sprig from George Washington Elm
 

In the Children's Garden, south of the cathedral's South (Children's ) Tower, stands the George Washington Elm, great-grandson of a famed original. Its grandfather was given to Grace Cathedral in 1933 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, along with historic soil from Revolutionary War battle sites. The original American elm stood in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was, according to legend, the tree beneath which General Washington reviewed the Continental Army in 1775. Washington's coat-of-arms, three stars above two bars, may have influenced the design for the American flag, historic versions of which hang in the cathedral's north transept (1976). In the south transept is the personal flag of John Fremont, explorer of the American West, and first presidential candidate of the new Republican Party (1856).


Drawing of FDR for Government window
 

Washington's successor, President John Adams, appears in the Liturgical/ Ecclesiastical Reform window (south aisle, Willet, 1966) as a champion of the Bill of Rights and religious freedom. In the apse (near the south choir door) stands the former cathedral lectern, sculpted by Gutzon Borglum (c. 1907) famed later creator of the presidential monument at Mount Rushmore. Finally, Government, one of the cathedral's Human Endeavor windows (north clerestory, Loire, 1970) shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt, joined by the emblem of the United Nations he envisioned, an outline of North America, and the rising towers of urban America.

 
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