1822–1893 · 19th president of the United States, 1877–1881
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was a Cincinnati lawyer who defended refugee slaves in court, was wounded five times in the Union army, rose to brevet major general, served in Congress and as governor of Ohio, and became the 19th president of the United States after the most disputed election in the country’s history. He is a convenient owner for a story about short-sightedness precisely because most people know nothing else about him: the joke needs a president obscure enough that no one will object, and famous enough to be worth naming. It also needs a president in office when the telephone was new — which Hayes was, and Grant, the story’s original subject, was not.