Rutherford B. Hayes claimed the presidency only after a prolonged investigation into charges of voter fraud. Because the investigation itself was far from unbiased, the legitimacy of Hayes's accession has always been debatable. Still, he proved an able chief executive, and he took some of the first significant steps toward curbing the well-entrenched corruption in the civil service system.

Olin Warner sculpted this bust in the hope that the Republican Party would use replicas of it to promote Hayes's presidential candidacy. One party official wrote that the image might help discount the prevailing notion that Hayes "is a second-rate man." The replicating venture, however, never went beyond the talking stage.

Olin Levi Warner (1844-1896)
plaster, 1876
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Transfer from the National Museum of American Art,
gift of Mrs. Carlyle Jones
NPG.76.27

Enlarged image

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