On this inauguration day, the news is rife with talk of the ceremony, the weather, the new round of pardons, illegal immigration, Chinese spies, inflation, etc, but one vital topic has been ignored. Facial hair. J.D. Vance’s restrained, well-groomed beard is making history.
How long has it been since this country has had any facial hair in the Oval Office? Quite a long time as it turns out.
Sure, Al Gore grew a beard but only after he termed out as VP and lost his presidential bid to Bush.
Why so clean-shaven in recent decades? Bolsheviks! It was those damn Bolshies who made the stache look so suspect. Technology may have played a hand as well: electric razors made the arduous process of strop-soak-soap-shave faster, easier, and more autonomous. Disposable razors were even more instrumental in this regard.
And then there are the grannies. You know, “straighten up, comb your hair, wash your face.” The universal granny command to keep things spic-and-span. Which translated to a distrust for any hooligan, beatnik, hippy, subversive who didn’t. Or as my granny put it, “I always believe a man with a beard has something to hide.
So, in the run for an office in which the slightest gaff can cost you a full point, and loss by single points is not uncommon, everybody decided to go clean for Gene.
Looking over presidents, none has sported facial hair above or below the lips since William Howard Taft rocked a luxurious imperial handlebar during his 1909–1913 term.
Veeps held onto the hair a little longer with Charles Curtis going with a bushy painter’s brush while serving under Calvin Coolidge in his 1929-1933 term. Maybe Silent Cal really wanted him to shear it but couldn’t spare the syllables to tell him.
Many fine staches preceded Curtis such as Thomas R. Marshall’s chevron 1913-21, Charles W. Fairbanks’ massive walrus plus van dyke 1905-9, and Teddy Roosevelt’s near-horseshoe worn as veep for six months before McKinley’s death put him on top.
But Chester A. Arthur’s massive muttonchops aside, no one in the second seat has gone full Beardo since Schuyler Colfax’s Mennonite turn during U.S. Grant’s first term.
You don’t have to go that far back to find the man in the top spot letting his freak flag fly with an ear to ear commitment of full fur. Benjamin Harrison in his single term from 1889 to 1893 (did it cost him a second?) had a mid-length graybeard.
So, as of this moment, Vance brings in the first soup strainer on a veep since 1933, the first full beard since 1873. And if he does become POTUS, he’ll be the first since 1893 to wear the full and proper masculine attire. Or, as my granny would say, he’ll be the first Prez “with something to hide.” (uh, no, grandma, there have been a few others, I think).
Jedediah Smith 