I have come to a true dilemma in my life and despite mountains of advice I have received from close friends and loved ones I cannot seem to decide on a clear course of action. I just hope that some helpful Dopers can assist me.
Just this weekend I discovered that the local Salvation Army has a nearly complete set of Presidential portraits, the kind you would expect to see on the wall of a museum or perhaps a school. The unfortunate problem is that I am not at the moment gainfully employed, the result being that I can only afford to buy three portraits at the price they are asking. I have already purchased the portrait of John Adams but I cannot make a decision on the last two.
LBJ is out, not because I don’t want a portrait of him but because I am buying that one as a gift for my elder brother, and Lincoln (who I am sure would be mentioned within a few posts) is out because that one had already sold. There are other gaps here and there but a fair amount of the Presidents remain from Washington to Reagan.
I am strongly leaning towards Teddy Roosevelt for one of them for a variety of reasons, the fact that he was the last President with facial hair coming in at a close second to his many accomplishments in office. And while Washington is certainly tempting I have to imagine that if I wanted a portrait of Washington it would be easier to obtain than most Presidents. On top of that I already have one founding father and I was hoping to cover as wide a range of American history as I can with just three portraits.
So what say you? What two Presidents would you go for, and for what reasons? Keep in mind that this is not strictly a ‘Who is the greatest President’ type thread, I am considering Martin Van Buren because he had great sideburns, so so any reasoning is valid.
Why the hell would anyone want a portrait of LBJ? If you’re going to do that, you have to go all-out and get one of LBJ and his famous toilet meetings where he received updates and gave instructions to his aides who stood around him while he took a crap.
William Howard Taft, the president after T.R. and the only president who also became a supreme court justice, also had facial hair.
While he is not a huge fan of LBJ’s policies my brother has always been impressed with his political skills, mostly during his senate years. But for any specifics I would have to ask him as I have not read much on the subject myself.
Curses! I knew I should have checked on that. I wasn’t certain that was correct but I couldn’t come up with anyone else off the top of my head.
Assuming these portraits are of fairly decent quality, they would obviously be worth more as a complete set.
OK, so you don’t have the money now…but is is the Salvation Army…if I were you, I would talk to the manager and tell him/her of your love of the entire set and see if you can make a deal. Pay for three, but ask if they can store the entire collection in the back room somewhere and give you…a year?..to come up with the rest of the funds?
If you ask nicely, I can imagine they would see the advantage of buying the entire set and might agree. Plus, once the collection starts to get chopped up, the individual portraits begin to lose value and meaning.
Just a thought, but I personally would try to get the entire set.
Of course, the next question is where exactly do you intend to hang them all, unless you have a house with lots of wall space in the east wing…
Two? Jeez, that’s tough. Franklin Roosevelt would be a definite yes. When I lived with my uncle, he had a whole hallway festooned with FDR memorabilia: portraits, programs, political handbills, and even a tie with a pattern of silhouettes of donkeys and FDR heads. I liked it, and FDR does make for good decoration, and I like FDR, too. My mother’s side of the family were Roosevelt Republicans, but they’re mostly either disenchanted Republicans or ex-Republicans these days. Me, I cut out the middleman and just became a Democrat, like my dad.
Anyway, a second? Only one more? That’s easy: Lincoln. The Great Emancipator. A great president, a great man.
I’d do what I could to get more portraits, of course, but those would be the top two. I’d like to add:
Harry Truman
Jimmy Carter
Grover Cleveland
William Jennings Bryan (yeah, I know he didn’t win, but still…)
Sam Tilden (yeah, I know he won but didn’t win, but still…)
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Eugene V. Debs (yeah, I know he never had a prayer, but still…)
I guess there are only eight presidents whose portraits I’d really like to have on the wall. But I think it would be kind of cool to have one of Richard Nixon with the eyes cut out, so I could also bore holes in the wall behind it and spy on guests when I leave the room. It’s not that I’m a voyeur; it really wouldn’t be any fun unless I told them about it after spying on them. It wouldn’t seem appropriate to do that with any other president’s portrait, for that matter.
That is a really good idea! I will definetly give that a shot. They don’t quite have the entire set (I know Lincoln was already gone) but I could still try for the fairly complete set.
Hmmm, my east wing is packed full of all the statues I collected while I travelled the world… oh wait I’m thinking of Xanadu again. I probably won’t have a wall big enough for some time, but I could keep most of them in storage and periodically cycle a half dozen or so of them out.
There are some good arguments to be made for FDR, plus with him and Teddy I would have two presidents that did a lot to move the US out of isolationism.
That is a great list Chance, even if I can’t get them to hold to whole set those would probably be the ones I try to pick up as funds come in (plus Arthur and Van Buren for the facial hair).