Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United
States. Holding office between the
non-consecutive terms served by Grover Cleveland, Harrison’s rise to the top
political office in the United States should not be surprising, given his
family history. His grandfather, William
Henry Harrison, served briefly as the ninth President of the United
States. His father, John Scott Harrison,
was a congressman from Ohio (and the only man to be the son of and a father to
an American President). Benjamin Harrison
III was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Benjamin Harrison IV was a member of the
Virginia House of Burgesses. Benjamin
Harrison V was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Governor of
Virginia. Benjamin Harrison (actually
the eighth Harrison to take that given name) is a member of a family that has a
long and storied history in Virginia and the United States. What he does not have is an especially high
ranking among American Presidents, generally in the lower third of those serving
in office.
If there is a Capital who might be recalled with a history
similar to that of Benjamin Harrison, it might be a player who comes from a
family of hockey tradition, who had a relative (or two) who preceded him as a
member of the Capitals, but who might not have had the most illustrious of
careers in Washington. That Capital
might be Kip Miller.
Benjamin Harrison was born, raised, and schooled in
Ohio. After graduating from Miami
University in Oxford, he moved to Cincinnati to study law. He returned to Oxford before completing his
law studies and began his legal career there, joining the Republican Party
shortly thereafter. When the Civil War
broke out, Harrison volunteered to assist in recruiting then took command of a
company in 1862. Promoted to colonel, he
took command of the 70th Indiana Regiment.
By the end of the war he had been promoted to brigadier general.
After the war, Harrison involved himself more deeply in
Indiana politics. He served as reporter
of the Supreme Court of Indiana and campaigned for the Republican nomination
for Governor of the state. He lost that
run, but four years later accepted the party’s nomination when the original
nominee left the race. He lost the
statewide race, but it positioned him to make a run for the United States
Senate in an election to replace the deceased Senator Oliver Morton. Since senators were, at the time, selected by
state legislatures, and the Indiana legislature had a Democratic majority,
Harrison lost in this campaign as well.
He finally won office when in 1880 a Republican majority in the state
legislature picked him to serve as Senator.
After serving one term, he lost his bid for re-election as the state
legislature once more changed majorities.
This was all prelude to the election of 1888. The Republican Party convention was crowded
with candidates. Thirteen individuals
won votes on the first ballot, Harrison coming in fifth. Through six ballots, however, his vote totals
rose steadily until he won the most votes on the seventh ballot but not enough
to win nomination. On the eighth ballot
he finally won enough votes to defeat the five remaining challengers.
Harrison won the general election in the constitutional
oddity of having lost the popular vote to Democrat Grover Cleveland by about
90,000 votes of more than 11 million cast, but winning in the Electoral College
by a 233-168 margin when Cleveland’s home state Electoral College delegation of
New York cast their 36 votes for Harrison.
Harrison’s presidency was largely consumed by issues that
dominated the administrations of his immediate predecessors – tariffs and trade,
civil service reform, currency, and expanding the Navy. But his was a presidency of “firsts,”
too. He was the first president to have
his voice preserved, originally done so on a wax cylinder. He had electricity installed in the White
House. He was the first (and, to date,
only) president from Indiana. He signed
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the first such Federal act of its kind signed into
law. His administration also saw an
expansion of the nation, itself. North
and South Dakota were admitted to the Union under Harrison (although as the
story goes, due to a rivalry between the two new states, Harrison had the proclamation
documents shuffled before he signed them so it would not be known which of the
two states would be admitted first).
He also had a “first” he was not counting on. In 1892 he became the first president to lose
office to a former President when he lost a rematch with Grover Cleveland. He returned home to Indianapolis, serving on
the Board of Trustees of Purdue University and practicing law until his death
in 1901.
Kip Miller was the sixth of ten members of the Miller family
to play hockey as a collegian at Michigan State University and the third of
that family to play for the Capitals. He
was preceded in Washington by brothers Kelly, who played 13 seasons for the
Caps, and appeared in 940 regular season and 116 postseason games with the
club; and Kevin, who appeared in ten games of the 1992-1993 season with the
Caps as part of a 13-year NHL career.
In his freshman year at Michigan State, Miller scored 22 goals
and recorded 42 points in 45 games, good enough to get the attention of the
Quebec Nordiques, who took him in the fourth round (72nd overall, right after,
it turned out, another former Capital, Joe Sacco) of the 1987 Entry Draft. Miller went on to play four years at MSU,
winning the Hobey Baker Award as the NCAA’s top player in 1990, beating out
former NHL defenseman Rob Blake and former Capital Joe Juneau, among others.
Miller split time in the 1990-1991 season between the
Nordiques and the Halifax Citadels in the AHL and did the same to start the
1991-1992 season. However, in March 1992
he was traded to the Minnesota North Stars for Steve Maltais. And so began quite a journey for Miller
around the NHL, as well as the AHL.
Beginning with his trade to the North Stars in March 1992 and ending
with the 1997-1998 season, Miller played for the North Stars, San Jose Sharks,
New York Islanders (twice), and Chicago Blackhawks organizations. He only appeared in 41 NHL games,
though. The rest of his time was spent
in the IHL, playing for the Kalamazoo Wings, Kansas City Blades, Denver
Grizzlies, Indianapolis Ice, Chicago Wolves, and Utah Grizzlies. He was one of those “tweeners” who could put
up big minor league numbers (200-344-544 in 434 games with those teams over the
period), but could not perform well enough at the NHL level to secure a
permanent spot on an NHL roster (5-12-17 in 41 games over the same period).
After that 1997-1998 season, Miller was left exposed by the
New York Islanders to the waiver draft, and in early October he was claimed by
the Pittsburgh Penguins. At the age of
29, Miller finally had a regular spot in an NHL lineup. He played 77 games for the Penguins in that
1998-1999 season, finishing sixth on the club in both goals (19) and points
(42). His travels were not over yet,
though. The following season he was
traded at mid-season to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for a ninth-round draft
pick in the 2000 Entry Draft. But then
it was back to Pittsburgh as a free agent for the next season, and with it a
return to intermittent play. He played
just 33 games with the Penguins in 2000-2001 before joining the New York
Islanders (for the third time, it is worth noting, the only player in that
team’s history to pull off that trifecta) as a free agent in 2001-2002. There he played in just 37 games, and at age
32 it looked as if his days as a fixture in an NHL lineup might be approaching
an end.
There was a team that thought it could use a player with
Miller’s experience, though. Not so much
for the 400-plus games of regular season experience Miller had, but for with
whom he played some of those games.
Having acquired Jaromir Jagr the previous season, the Caps signed Miller
– a former teammate of Jagr’s in Pittsburgh (as was Robert Lang, also signed as a free agent by the Caps) – with the hope of juicing Jagr’s
game and finding some of the scoring touch he displayed with the Penguins. Miller did his part. In 2002-2003 he appeared in 72 games and went
12-38-50, setting a career high in total points, while the 12 goals was topped
only by the 19 he had with the Penguins in 1998-1999.
The 2003-2004 season saw the Capitals in full sell-off mode
in advance of their rebuild, and although Miller was not part of that sell-off,
his numbers did dip. He finished
9-22-31, minus-10, in 66 games. It was
his last season with the Caps, and he was not able to hook up with any team
until the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL signed him in December 2004. Miller played three seasons in the AHL before
ending his career after the 2006-2007 season.
Benjamin Harrison and Kip Miller come from famous families
in their respective vocations. Neither
could depend on that lineage to guarantee them noteworthy careers in
Washington. That is what makes them partners in this series of presidents and Capitals.
