What's a Former President To Do?

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” William Howard Taft once proposed that each new former president be chloroformed to ``fix his place in history and enable the public to pass on to new measures and new men.''

Monday, January 22nd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” William Howard Taft once proposed that each new former president be chloroformed to ``fix his place in history and enable the public to pass on to new measures and new men.''

Taft's dark humor surfaced when he was still smarting from Theodore Roosevelt's attempt to steer policies from retirement, even to the point of trying to replace Taft in the White House.

Earlier, Grover Cleveland had a different reaction when a newspaper editor suggested facetiously that all former presidents be branded as public nuisances and hauled before a firing squad.

``An ex-president has already suffered enough,'' Cleveland said in protest.

This week, Bill Clinton, who perhaps enjoyed the tumult and dazzle of the White House more than any president since Theodore Roosevelt, faces the ultimate question: What exactly does a former president do now?

Clinton's predecessors have had quite different prescriptions for the next stage in their lives. One, Jimmy Carter, gave a whole new meaning to the job of ex-president.

Cleveland dealt with his status as an ex-president by running for president again, and winning. Taft, who had been unhappy in the White House, was named chief justice and never looked back. ``I don't remember that I ever was president,'' he said.

At 54, Clinton's options are open: completing his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., writing his memoirs, lecturing, staying active in political life, including the career of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and, in his words, ``making money.''

George Washington shaped the landscape for those to follow by his simple decision to become a former president in the first place. Had he wanted, he probably could have served for life.

John Adams, the second former president, went home to Quincy, Mass., embittered by his 1800 defeat by Thomas Jefferson. Once settled in on his farm, Adams became a town surveyor of roads, selectman and assessor. And he began a celebrated correspondence with Jefferson that re-established their friendship and illuminated national history.

The paths former presidents have taken in their years out of office have been as varied as their circumstances and personalities.

Some flashbacks:

â€”John Quincy Adams, the first presidential son to become president until George W. Bush did it, won election to the House, where he helped create the Smithsonian Institution and beat the gag rule imposed to stop him from introducing petitions to abolish slavery.

â€”Jefferson completed work on his home, Monticello; founded and designed the University of Virginia and re-established his broken friendship with Adams in one of the most celebrated correspondences in American history.

â€”James Buchanan wrote the first presidential memoir â€” a defense of his hapless tenure â€” thereby establishing a precedent for a still-flourishing and increasingly profitable literary enterprise.

â€”John Tyler retired to Sherwood Forest, his Virginia estate, raised seven children in a second marriage and when the Civil War broke out was elected to the Confederate Congress. He died in 1862 before he could take his seat.

â€”Andrew Johnson, the first president until Clinton to be impeached, was elected to the Senate, the body that had acquitted him by a single vote.

â€”Ulysses S. Grant courageously wrote his Civil War memoirs even as he was dying of cancer.

â€”Theodore Roosevelt, after pursuing big game on African safaris, challenged Taft, his chosen successor, and lost a three-way race to Woodrow Wilson.

â€”Wilson, his health shattered, settled into a house in Washington and enjoyed silent movies, rides in the country and evenings at burlesque houses.

â€”Harry Truman took the train home to Independence, Mo. He later began a successful campaign to grant former presidents a pension.

â€”Richard Nixon mounted a mission to save his post-Watergate reputation.

â€”Ronald Reagan was criticized for accepting $2 million in fees â€” $400,000 more than his salary during eight years as president â€” for giving speeches in Japan.

Since he was ousted by Reagan in 1980, Carter may have done more than any of his predecessors to raise expectations that ex-presidents have an obligation to use their status to do good.

Surmounting his disappointment at his election defeat, Carter faced the question of what to do next. He pounded nails for Habitat for Humanity and used the Carter Center in Atlanta to help settle international conflicts, monitor elections in countries where democracy is challenged, and work to eradicate such devastating plagues as river blindness and Guinea Worm.

Presidents who make the transition to private citizen leave behind the splendor of the White House, the helpful staff and travel on Air Force One.

Two weeks after his presidency ended, George H.W. Bush wrote this in his journal:

``We kid about the cooking. We kid about no staff, no valets, no shined shoes and no pressed suits ....''

``I am the dish washer. I rinse the plates and put them in the washer. Almost simultaneously I load our coffee machine. ... then we walk the dogs.

``And along the way we count our blessings.''