This Week In Cigar History: March 10-16

Admired for his self-deprecatory wit and remark — “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar” — former Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall was born this week, March 14, 1854.

Aligned with President Woodrow Wilson for two terms, Marshall had practiced law and served as governor of Indiana before being tapped by Democrats to join the presidential ticket in 1912. He regarded the Vice Presidential role as “useless, nameless,” and had his office moved to a private setting in the Capitol building where he could put his feet up on his desk and smoke cigars.

Another example of Marshall’s breezy attitude is recounted by his joke about a woman with two sons: “One ran away and went to sea, the other was elected Vice President of the United States. Neither one was ever heard from again.”

Marshall, as President of the Senate, attended sessions, though President Wilson broke with protocol and never used his Vice President as a go-between among Congressional leaders and the executive branch. No doubt bored, Marshall’s cigar quip was spoken to a clerk during a brief pause in one Senator’s tedious speech about “what this country needs...” The memorable expression, “what this country needs is a good five-cent cigar,” had reportedly first appeared in a printed newspaper comic.

news@doubledownmedia.com

3/10/08

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