The hoopla surrounding the party conventions coincides with one important presidential anniversary: 50 years ago on August 25 President Eisenhower signed the Former Presidents Act providing the first ever pension to former American presidents.

The lifetime guarantee was long overdue, especially as a number of the nation’s ex-presidents lived their final days in relative poverty or debt. For decades debates had raged in Congress about the merits of a presidential pension. But it took Harry Truman’s return to Independence, Mo., and his inability to afford the postage on his voluminous mail for Congress to act.

Resistance to pensioning our commander-in-chiefs dates from the first days of the Republic. Americans’ anxiety over conventions that might resemble a monarchy — namely lifelong privileges — stymied its establishment. Benjamin Franklin was extra apprehensive and even had lobbied not to salary a president. Complicating matters further was the implicit rule that past presidents should shun business-related ventures that would provide them a comfortable retirement; such pursuits were perceived as tarnishing the office of the presidency.

America’s earliest presidents were hardest hit, economically. Not only was there no pension, but presidents were required to fund many White House expenses from their own pockets including public receptions, furniture, and personal staff.

Taking on a job with no long-term financial security had consequences: Thomas Jefferson was $7,000 in the hole after his second term and bankrupt when he died — despite selling off his 6,000 volume library to the government. James Monroe’s estate had insufficient funds upon his death for his daughter to ship his body to his native Virginia from New York — it took 27 years to do so. Later in life, Andrew Jackson lamented, “Poverty stares us in the face.”

Perhaps the best-remembered story relates to a financially-strapped President Grant. Swindled out of most of his savings by a corrupt business venture, Grant, while suffering from terminal throat cancer, raced to finish his memoirs with the hope that the book’s proceeds could support his family after his death. Thanks to Grant’s friend and publisher Mark Twain, and fortunately for his family, the memoirs became an instant best-seller.

For years, select members of Congress raised concerns about the fate of the country’s former presidents. Legislators introduced bills to establish a proper pension but the proposals were repeatedly shot down. Aghast at his adopted country’s miserliness, industrialist Andrew Carnegie took it upon himself in 1912 to offer presidents a lifetime annuity, arguing that they should “be able to spend the latter part of their lives devoting their unique knowledge gained of public affairs to the public good free from pecuniary cares.”

But Carnegie’s underlying hope to goad the federal government into action failed. It took until Truman, who carped that generals were receiving all-star treatment and presidents were left to rot, before Congress moved forward.

It is ironic that pensions finally were awarded just as money-making opportunities for former presidents began to skyrocket. Richard Nixon, despite his fall from grace, received considerable remuneration from his television interviews with David Frost, not to mention the multiple foreign policy books he penned.

Nixon’s Republican successor, Gerald Ford, became a symbol for post-presidential rapacity by joining numerous corporate boards; George H.W. Bush garnered untold sums from his consultancy work at the Carlyle Group; and Bill Clinton has raked in more than $50 million in speaking engagements alone since leaving office. Even George W. Bush has not been shy about his immediate post-presidential interests, expressing a desire to “replenish the ‘ol coffers.” Indeed, the pension today seems a quaint vestige of another era as pension-related income comprises only a fraction of a former president’s assets.

Comparing paying presidents a lifetime annual salary at a level of a cabinet secretary, currently $191,300, to giving bonuses to wealthy athletes for success in the post-season is a tad gratuitous. It bears mentioning that the pension was once believed to be a hedge against ex-presidents cashing-in on the office.

To weaken the temptation to trade on their influence, the Former Presidents Act offered additional perks such as office space and staff allowances and soon thereafter Secret Service detail and transition funds for returning to private life. But despite Congress’s best intentions, these generous packages did little to deter our ex-heads of state from exploiting their prestige for profit.

Former presidents who have made considerable sums should be pressured by the public to voluntarily hand back their tax-payer supported annuity.

On this 50th anniversary of the presidential pension, the words of Harry Truman, the pension’s first beneficiary, merit revisiting: “I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the … dignity of the office of the presidency.” Truman’s successors would be wise to pay heed.

Mr. Benardo’s and Ms. Weiss’s book, “Citizen-in-Chief: The Second Lives of the American Presidents,” will be published in January 2009.