As the election season finally gets its boots on, office-seeking motor-mouths of every creed and colour would do well to remember the tale of William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States of America, who died on this day in 1841, exactly one month after taking office.
The ‘pneumonia of the lower lobe of the right lung’ (plus complications) was said to be brought on by a cold, contracted on the day of his inauguration when Harrison gave a two-hour speech – at 8,500 words, the longest in American history – on a freezing wet day, rode to and from the ceremony on horseback (rather than in a carriage), and refused at any point to wear a hat, gloves, or even an overcoat.
Both the clothing business and the length of the address were, it seems, fatally misguided attempts to demonstrate that Harrison was neither an intellectual backwoodsman nor – coming out of rural semi-retirement at the age of 68 (another record, till Ronald Reagan) – past it as a warrior hero.
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