PRESIDENTS' BOTTOM LINE; SIMI EXHIBIT BARES SOLES OF LEADERS.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Daily News Staff Writer

Abe Lincoln preferred simple lines with no adornment in his size-14, black, ankle-high boots.

Woodrow Wilson literally bucked tradition in white buckskins with a slightly feathered tongue.

Lincoln, 6 feet 4 and 180 pounds, had the largest presidential feet. Grover Cleveland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wilson and Harry Truman were tied for the smallest shoe size, 9.

Three wooden display cases at the entrance of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum show some bottom-line clues to the personalities and statures of several former presidents: their shoes.

The Johnston & Murphy Presidential Shoe Exhibit opened at the library Wednesday for a run until Nov. 29. The 150-year-old shoe company sent duplicates of shoes, made expressly for 12 presidents, from its collection.

``It's interesting,'' said Idaho resident Sheryle Landon as she peered at the shoes. ``You wonder what kind of shoes they wore. Shoes say a lot about a person.''

Landon and her daughter, Thousand Oaks resident Allison Cooley, marveled at Lincoln's shoe, which dwarfed all others in the ornate cases.

``(Lincoln) was a big man,'' said Landon, who says she is distant relative of the 16th president. ``He was kind of put together in pieces: big head, big feet, big body.''

Nashville-based Johnson & Murphy has custom-made shoes for every president since Millard Fillmore.

For generations, Johnson & Murphy officials, shrewd at marketing, have sent a letter to the sitting president offering to make him a pair of shoes in a style of his choice.

No president has refused.

And knowing the shoes would be valuable advertising, the company made two pairs: one for the president and one for display.

``We don't ask them to return (used shoes) because they're probably pretty worn out by then,'' said Johnson & Murphy spokeswoman Deanna Grubbs.

In the past 50 years, the exhibit has made stops at Mount Rushmore, at the Lincoln home in Springfield, Mo., and at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va.

In addition to shoes identical to those made for Lincoln and Wilson, the display includes duplicates of the dress boots worn by Ulysses S. Grant and the cap-toe, Theodore Roosevelt's lace-up chukkas and Warren Harding's early-1920s shoes with spats buttoned up to the ankles.

Other presidents whose shoe choices are on exhibit are Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color in Simi and Conejo Edition only) President Harding's 1920s shoes with spats are a contrast to President Eisenhower's conservative wingtips from the '50s in an exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

(2--Color) (Ran in Simi and Conejo Edition only) In Simi, Allison Cooley and her mother, Sheryle Landon, see a boot fitted on President Lincoln.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Special to the Daily News