Governor Grover Cleveland stared in disbelief at the front page of the Buffalo Telegraph. Just ten days earlier he had received the Democratic Party's nomination for president, and given his reputation for unwavering honesty, he knew that he had a real chance to win. His Republican opponent, the notoriously corrupt James G. Blaine a man who would soon become known as Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the Continental liar from the state of Maine! was vulnerable. If Cleveland managed to parlay his sterling reputation into a victory in November, he would be the first Democrat elected since before the Civil War. But now, as Cleveland stared in disgust at the newspaper sitting on his desk, victory looked a lot less likely. A TERRIBLE TALE, screamed the morning's headline.

A DARK CHAPTER IN A PUBLIC MAN'S HISTORY. The Telegraph's article told the story of Maria Halpin, a widow in Cleveland's hometown of Buffalo, who had a child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Cleveland, a bachelor, had never acknowledged that his former lover's child was his. After all, several of his drinking buddies had also shared Maria's bed could he really be sure of his paternity? But those friends were all married, so Cleveland had agreed to give the child his last name and his financial support. When the boy was sent to an orphanage after Maria's excessive drinking and deteriorating emotional state led to her stay in a mental institution, Cleveland had dutifully paid the orphanage bill of five dollars a week. Now, in the midst of Cleveland's presidential campaign, the nine-year-old child's very existence threatened to derail his White House hopes unless he could find a way to turn this crisis into an opportunity.