Successful entrepreneurs need not apply

I had no riches

I died a debtor

I died free-hearted

And that was better.

Whether Thomas Jefferson really thought that we don't know. Poet Stephen St. Vincent Benet put those words in his mouth. But what we do know is that Thomas Jefferson quit practicing law after inheriting a mid-sized plantation and a modicum of slaves, believing he was set for life. He wasn't. Jefferson was constantly dodging creditors, oftentimes employing James Monroe to represent him. In 1826 he was footsteps from the poorhouse when the Virginia legislature passed a bill enabling him to sell off some of his lands at a public auction. Governor John Tyler thought that unseemly and talked John Marshall into forming a syndicate that would raise money to bail Tom out by passing the hat. Subscriptions were scheduled to be taken on July 5, 1826, but on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson escaped his creditors by dying.

Our current president obtusely denies his past, pretending he did not run a casino, an airline, and the United States Football League into the ground. Instead, he proclaims a lifetime string of uninterrupted business wins as justification for holding Lincoln's office. But there is absolutely no connection between the ability to run the gas works and the ability to run the country. Ask Abe Lincoln.

As a young man, Lincoln embarked on a career as a surveyor, buying a horse, saddle and bridle on credit. He fell behind and his creditor obtained an order for a sheriff's sale. Luckily for Abe, friends chipped in, bid successfully, and returned him the tools of his trade. Lincoln later went into partnership with an army buddy from the Black Hawk War named William Berry and operated a general store. Berry procured the store a dram shop license and Abraham Lincoln sold liquor by the drink. Unfortunately, Berry preferred drinking the inventory to selling it, and the business went belly-up. It took years for Lincoln to pay off all the debt. Lincoln's legal training got started when a traveler stopped in the store and purchased supplies by bartering a barrel of sundries. At the bottom of the barrel was a Blackstone. Abe read it and changed professions. During the fights over temperance and prohibition, teetotalers claimed Lincoln for one of their own. Brewer August Busch countered by circulating copies of Abraham Lincoln's liquor license to adorn barroom walls nationwide.

Lesser lights had their business failings too. Ulysses S. Grant couldn't make a go of it running a pool parlor. Years later, after his presidency, he was wiped out thanks to his unscrupulous partner in the brokerage firm of Grant and Wood. His heirs collected more money from the sale of his memoirs than Grant earned in his entire lifetime. Though Warren G. Harding eventually became rich publishing the Marion Star, he first had to flop as an insurance salesman. He sold plenty of policies to family and friends. However, the extensive coverage and very low premiums did not sit well with his employer and he was let go.

Harry Truman and his army buddy Eddie Jacobsen returned from The Great War and opened a haberdashery at 12th and Baltimore Street in Kansas City that failed during the recession of 1921. Harry's explanation for the failure was succinct "In 1920 the Republicans took over." He an Jacobsen remained lifelong friends although Eddie and his wife were not allowed to set foot in the home Harry and his wife Bess had inherited from Bess' father. Bess' family, the Wallaces, were anti-Semites and Jews were forbidden from entering the premises. Journalist David Suskind learned that the hard way when he interviewed the ex-president in 1961: on the porch.

Political enemies never let the voting world forget about Harry's misfortune. Even Arthur Miller wrote a little dig about it in his play "All My Sons." Democrats, on the other hand never took advantage of the fact Richard Nixon had once talked half the town of Whittier into investing in a frozen orange juice company called Citra-Frost. Nixon secured a contract with the Owl Drug Company but made the mistake of freezing the juice whole instead of reducing it to concentrate. Citra-Frost went sour. Nixon's old boss, attorney Tom Bewley was quoted by historian Fawn Brodie in 1978 saying "There are still people around here who hate his guts for that. People who put money in."

What was perhaps the biggest pre-presidential business blunder of all was William McKinley's execution of 10 blank bank guarantees on behalf of his old friend Robert Walker. Walker had loaned McKinley money during his law school days and was a major contributor to his early campaigns. As a congressman, McKinley had developed a reputation for expertise in things financial, and rode that rep into the Ohio governor's mansion. When Walker asked the governor to act as a guarantor of notes issued by his tin-stamping start-up, McKinley agreed, signing 10 blank notes in case Walker re-financed. Instead Walker kept borrowing more and more in hopes of sweating out the Panic of 1893. By the time he was forced into bankruptcy Walker had run up debt of over $110,000, far more than McKinley and his wealthy wife were worth. The next day he met with Republican money-man Herbert Kohlstaat who remembered "McKinley was pale and wan, with black rings under his eyes ... Tears rolling down his cheeks."

Cincinnati attorney Bellamy Storer came to McKinley's aid rallying bigshots to the rescue. He talked the banks into a 10 percent haircut and raised the rest from the likes of the Illinois Steel Company, Henry Clay Frick of Carnegie Steel, railcar king George Pullman, and meatpacker Phillip Armour. When McKinley ran for president in 1896 the story did him no harm at all. When he appointed one of his angels, Pittsburgh lawyer Philander Knox, attorney general, no one seemed to mind.

There is no such thing as an ideal presidential resume. But amassing a fortune without inheriting or marrying it doesn't seem to fit the bill. Two presidents who did so were James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover. Neither shined.