Presidents Quiz Answers

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Answers

1. Allow me to introduce you to Stephen G. Cleveland, Thomas W. Wilson and John C. Coolidge Jr. Franklin Pierce (answer c) had nothing to hide but a drinking problem.

2. Which of our presidents was a lapsed journalist? Although Theodore Roosevelt was a self-aggrandizing megalomaniac, he somehow missed his vocation. John Kennedy was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author with superb taste in ghostwriters, but the millionaire prince never pretended to be a journalist. No, the stigma is on "Scoop" Harding (answer c) of The Marion Star, Ohio's gift to journalism.

3. Andrew Jackson was a military hero, but in his less glorious past he had been elected to Congress. James Buchanan also served in Congress before beginning his distinguished diplomatic career and abysmal presidency. William Howard Taft was almost a political innocent. He never had to smile, grovel or pander to be solicitor general or secretary of war, but he was elected to the Superior Court of Ohio. There was a good reason why Herbert Hoover (answer d) was so maladroit. An engineer and secretary of commerce, Hoover never had a sordid and grueling but useful apprenticeship in politics.

4. Only six of our presidents have been bald (answer c). No wonder the Whig Party failed. Our defoliated heads of state were John Adams, John Quincy Adams (damn heredity), Martin Van Buren, James Garfield, Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford. In contrast, there have been eight admitted Freemasons, nine generals and nine Ivy Leaguers. Political scientists have long noted the public's hirsute preferences. Eisenhower had the advantage of being a general and running against the equally bald Adlai Stevenson.

5. Buchanan was a bachelor; yes, there were rumors. Since Radcliffe and Wellesley were not founded while John Quincy Adams had a libido, our sixth president and second Harvardite married beneath him. Louisa Adams (answer a) was born in London in 1775, but her parents were Americans from the colony of Maryland.

Add up your answers and see where you rank as an American monument.

5 correct -- Mount Rushmore
4 -- Disneyland
3 -- San Simeon
2 -- OK Corral
1 -- Herbert Hoover Presidential Library
0 -- Alcatraz