Marshall, who was VP under Woodrow Wilson, is of particular interest to me because I made him a character in my book, Liberty Girl. I wanted to get a good sense of his voice, so I tracked down a copy of his memoir, A Hoosier Salad.
Today, Marshall isn't really remembered for any legislative accomplishments. Historians record that he didn't get along with Wilson, although Marshall himself never really said so in his memoir. Instead, he focused on his duties as President of the Senate, where among other things, he championed the development of the first cloture-vote rules for breaking filibusters. Once the US entered World War I, Wilson sent Marshall around the country on a speaking tour to rally support for the war effort. (I did a fictionalized version of one such event, which took place in October 1918 at Baltimore's 5th Regimental Armory, in my book.)
kensmind asked me about the "succession crisis" when Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919, and why Marshall didn't take over as Acting President while Wilson was incapacitated. Marshall didn't answer the question directly in his memoir. The closest he came was this:"Those were not pleasant months for me. The standing joke of the country is that the only business of the vice-president is to ring the White House bell every morning and ask what is the state of health of the president. If there were a soul so lost to humanity as to have desired his death, I was not that soul. I hoped that he might acquire his wonted health. I was afraid to ask about it, for fear some censorious soul would accuse me of a longing for his place. I never have wanted his shoes. Peace, friendship and good will have ever been more to me than place or pomp or power."
We must remember that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment wasn't in the Constitution yet, so there were no clearly defined rules for what to do with an incapacitated president. In order to take over, Marshall would have had to exercise powers that the Constitution hadn't explicitly given his office, and he didn't want to do that. Given the claim that Marshall clashed with Wilson and the administration, taking over for Wilson probably would have caused a lot of friction, if not a full-blown Constitutional crisis. That's not something Marshall would have wanted to get into, since he didn't really want to be President anyway.
What Marshall is most remembered for these days is his sense of humor. He wasn't afraid to put down himself or the office of the Vice President. When White House tours went by his office, he would invite the visitors to throw him peanuts. (It was then "suggested" that Marshall should move his office to the Senate building instead.) At one point during the war, Marshall and some of his Senate friends posed for this photo supporting the Liberty Bond drive:
And of course, his best known quip was "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar." There are several different accounts of how he came to say that, but they all center around one of the Senators making a pompous and long-winded speech about the needs of the nation.
The Whitley County Historical Museum contains a number of Marshall's personal effects, including the desk he used during his law practice. They also have a lot of furniture and other memorabilia from the period when Marshall lived there. Here are a couple of views of the house's front rooms.
Don't you just love the mannequin dressed up to look like Marshall? I think he would have approved.
And of course, no Thomas Marshall museum would be complete without this:
I haven't looked into whether there are any other museums along the Highway of the Vice Presidents. Surely Quayle has something, but I'm not too interested in visiting it. If I ever visit a Thomas Hendricks museum, I'll be sure to let you all know.