Transcripts For CSPAN3 First Ladies Influence Image - Lucre

Its only in recent years that a lot of focus on how it rocked her message was, predicting in the early years. I think james found her distant and cold, but as the years went by, she had a tremendous influence on him. James and luke richard spent a lot of time with her family, and that led to the key to success. Mrs. Garfield adored her time at the exhibition and she was interested in the latest sciences and technologies of the day. After james guard feel to death, a lot of prominent citizens raised there into 50 dollars that was turned over to Lucretia Garfield. And todays dollars, that would equate to 8 Million Dollars. Her character was exceedingly strong and she had a rectitude that was in vulnerable. I Lucretia Garfield was born in ohio and 1832. Her life spans antebellum america to the progressive era of the early 20th century. A supporter of womens rights and deeply interested in partisan politics, she and president james our field entered the white house on march 4th, 1881, after a very close election. However, what plans he had as first lady were soon got four by an assassin bullet. Good evening and welcome to cspan series, first ladies influence an image. Tonight we will learn about Lucretia Garfield and after the assassination, the next person to come into the white house, Chester Arthur, who did so without a first lady, and we learn how he handled that. Talk us understand this interesting period carl anthony, the historian at the National First Ladies Library who is also the author of americas first family. The circumstances of the garfield election really help to seal the president s fate, so tell us the story of where the Party Politics were at that time. Many of the large issues that had continued in post civil war era were in large measure put to rest, the Transcontinental Railroad had been six exceeded, and a lot of focus was on power and money and that struggle within the Republican Party for who would control the party, which meant who would control the positions that were appointed positions that were at the discretion of people in power, ended up being a power struggle within the party between and ohio based party, which was James Garfield party, and also was a rutherford haze from the same part of ohio, but also the same thinking. And what were called the stalworth which were in new york. You see certain states emerge throughout history with Holding Onto Power within a particular party, and in new york, that was headed by a man by the name of ras go, who became a senator. You see the man who ends up shooting president garfield, the range of course, but proudly screaming with the gun and his hand, im a stalwart, now arthur as president. And that was a reference to the fact that Vice President arthur elected garfield was in the new york wing of the party. He was a compromise candidate after many ballots of the convention, so when they came to the white house, where they accepted . They were accepted, and this was where lucretia played a vital role. A lot of it was a matter of calling together a cabinet where everybody would be happy that the new york wing would be happy, that garfield as leader of the partys would be satisfied, so you had Lucretia Garfield playing an espionage role and the post election free inauguration where she goes to the new york under the alias of mrs. Green field, and its really there where she deals with this guy she does not like cabinet of who would be appointed and who wouldnt. The election is very close, and said it was a terrible responsibility to come to him and me, so that you want to become first lady . She did not want to become first lady for herself, she wanted to become first lady for her husband. They had really been through everything and they lost to children, and had marital troubles and by the time he was run in 1880, they are very clear and very square on the same page in terms of their values, and they both shared a lot of intellectual and literary pursuits, that was a mutual passion that i think during that tough times kept them together, but she was, at the time she got the news that he had won the nomination, she was in an old vine, scrubbing the floor. And that was the first to use. She wrote a private letter for some friends and said the truth is, i really dont want to go to that place. But i really believe that my husband is the right man to lead the country. Throughout this program, will take you to the garfield home and mentor ohio and run by the national part, please make a point of visiting it and that became very famous that we are talking about, what did the force Campaign Come about . I dont know all the details except that it was relatively rural and groups of people came to hear them speak. That was the whole point, and most of them took place in the midwest and for Lucretia Garfield, what was interesting was that it was the property of her home, her being seen by the voters and people coming in and did not see anything unusual about the presence of his wife at what was a Campaign Rally because it was also her home. We learn more about the Front Porch Campaign. This was the side of the first front porch president ial campaign for. And her role was more concentrated on the inside of the home, so standing in the front hall is kind of a strange place to Start Talking about James Garfield why the hill Front Porch Campaign of 1880, but this is the part of the house where Lucretia Garfield spent a lot of her time during the campaign. Now, of course james carpeted went to chicago to nominate someone else for president , he was not expecting to be a candidate, so Lucretia Garfield had no expectation that over the next five months somewhere between 17 and 20,000 people would show up at her home and her property here. When these people started to show up on the property, that many people obviously were unexpected uninvited, started to cause some damage to the outside of the property. They were killing the crops and bringing things out of the ground to take the souvenirs, and Lucretia Garfield was very concerned, the same thing that was happening on the outside of the property, not happening here on the inside of the family home. So shes been a lot of time on this always keeping an eye on the front door, she was a gatekeeper and making sure that no one was able to get into the house. You see the front steps here on the house . His office was at the top of the steps, and at some point during the day, he would come down the steps and then go out the front door to stand on the front porch, talk to people who were gathered out there and give speeches as part of his Front Porch Campaign. And i imagine lucretia falling behind him, because he was so adamant that people dont get inside the home, they had a young family that they were very concerned about, and they also had just finished a major resignation u u u u u u u u u ud causing the same kind of damage inside that you saw on the outside of the property. We know that Lucretia Garfield was a very gracious host, and she very often would greet him at the front hallway and offer them during the campaign what she called standing refreshments, which meant that she was very gracious and talk to them for a few times, offer them water, but conspicuously, not chair to sit and because she did not want them to overstay their welcome. One thing that i wanted to tell you that its great about these programs is your involvement in and, we have a phone line set aside for you to call, and and will get to that in a couple of moments. You can also tweet us and use the hashtag first ladies and were already having a great conversation with lots of historical questions on our facebook page, and heres one of those. Our jay wilson writes, i visited the garfield house and saw that they look at previous president s, even from damages of all the previous president s. Did she feel that way or the sea of others who inspired her . A great question. We have a lot of bits of evidence that cumulatively show us that Lucretia Garfield was the first first lady to really have a strong consciousness about being part of a historical tradition of first ladies. In her diary, the only diary kept by a first lady, she records an incident where one of her guests comes in and tells her about the night of the fall of richmond the later on chains that was a farmhouse into a victorian mansion in the years of her widowhood, and had another home, a Beautiful Homes Still Standing in pasadena, california, which is a very forward thinking. Well think about that. Heres something that James Carville thought about her as they were Political Partners in the white house. He said that she is an stamp eatable, thats a great word. There has been one solitary and sense of my career when i suffered in the smallest degree for any remark she ever made. So tell us a bit more about that character that she brought to the job. Well, you know, it did not come using. She was one of those people that spend a lot of time thinking, and she always tried to be highly rational in her opinions when she formed them and in her concepts of people and just ideas, whatever it may be. Current events, history, and this was a bit of a problem early on when they were courting and even in their marriage because a lot of people, including her husband, felt that she was not emotionally expressive. But it was when she had given something a lot of thought and she was clear about how she felt, then she would express herself our beautiful. This was a real self motivated woman who thought education would not only be her get to success, but her happiness. One of the first decisions he had to make was about temperance, and whether they would follow the no alcohol policy set by the haze, which we learned about last week. Will you tell us about that decision that she made and how significant it was politically . It ended up, what she said, not having a very Significant Impact politically, but the threat was made to her by a woman who came and said, you know, you must continue the no alcohol policy. And Lucretia Garfield said thanks but no thanks. I feel that by my doing this one little thing, by not serving alcohol to my guests, it will take on an enormous importance in the press and give it far more attention than it needs. She herself drink wine, she writes about that in a letter to her husband. And then this woman threatens and says, well, this is going to affect the Republican Party and mrs. Garfield said, no, i dont think it is. This whole decision in the pressure for it came around the official portrait of lucy hayes, we talked about it in the last program, a big story about the money being raised to create this portrait. How much president jim was there on the arrival of this portrait and the ultimate decision that the garfield would make . It was presented to the white house as the white house not denying it, and nor they think that it would be wise in terms of Public Relations to deny the portrait of their most immediate predecessor, the wife of their most immediate predecessor. The controversy was the fact that, and mrs. Hayes was upset also because the money they claim they were getting the portrait done was being spent for Womens Christian Temperance Union and other projects. So it had a slight taint of scandal. Kathy robertson wants to know how popular she was in comparison to lucy hayes. There was very little time for her to actually become popular in the sense of functioning as a first lady the way we think. The inauguration was on march 1st. By the end of april she has malaria, and by may there was even a fear that she might die in the white house. And president garfield, does president for three months writes of how she was unable to work with fear that this was going to be, that something would happen to his wife. It is only after he is shot in july that the press really begin to focus on Lucretia Garfield and she becomes not only a national, but an International Heroin for her behavior and her calmness and control as the president is attempting recuperation. First calls from robert, in chicago. Hi, youre on. Good evening. I have one simple question to ask. By the time garfield became president , his salary was 50,000 dollars. I was just wondering if mrs. Garfield received the balance of the salary after he had passed on . Yes, she did. She also received his pension as a former member of congress, and she received, as susan mentioned, that large amount of public funds that were raised. And she also received a president ial widows pension, so she had quite a bit of income coming from several directions. This is a call from bill watching us from columbus, ohio. Hello. Your question . I grew up in, mineral, where the garfield estate is and i passed it all the time and i remember there being a place that he grew up in. Is it still there . I dont know. Have you ever visited the place . Surprisingly, i never did. And i lived there. That happened to so many of us when we have Historic Sites in our own communities not taking the time, but thanks for calling. Talking about her involvement in the collection,tn she was deeply involved in partisan politics and had a keen political sense, very briefly, where did she develop that keen political sense and had achieved to advise the president . She really started developing at once they moved to washington d. C. When he was a member of congress. They lost their first child, a girl, they lost their last born, a boy. They had a lot of tough times and during his service to washington, they were separated again and said shes not going to put up with it, so they decided to build a home in washington. When she came to washington as a congressional wife, she began attending debates on capitol hill and was there during the 1866 commission. And her husband belong to a literary society, but this was really her political education during those congressional years. She also put a room aside just for herself to paint and read in the house they built here in washington. But politics really became one i would say it was her primary interest and one of many and she was interested in everything. The cabinet, the issue of the cabinet really circles around the controversy and the knowledge that mrs. Garfield ones in the cabinet is just as important to me as knowing that you, the president , want me in the cabinet. And heres a quote, exactly. I wish she would say to his car filled that the knowledge that she desires me in your cabinet is more valuable to me than even the desire of the president elect himself. That says something about her influence, at least on the president. Absolutely. I would say that partisanship and these little splinters within parties, she was not a policy person. She was not someone who is looking at policy and saying that you should support this or not. She was looking at members of the cabinet, and from a part of partisan loyalty, where these people, theres that saying, keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer, she was always looking at how were these men going to potentially affect her husbands career. It seems as if they decide to mix the cabinet with both has breeds and stalwarts, and satisfy no one. To a degree. I mean by the time of garfields assassination, theres a great sense of remorse because this guy who shot him did it openly out of political partisanship, and it was sort of horrifying. That also involved Vice President arthur who was representative of the wing that the assassin claim to be associated with. We should be really specific about this. The brief tenure of this presidency, because president garfield was in office 186 days in total, and because of his lengthy decline, and will tell that story later, which is so interesting. He was actually only functional 421 days of that. So this is a really brief time, not much time to establish opinions in the public at large. You mention well this first. David murdoch is asking, and it seems that you just underscored how they answer would be yes. Did change look to his wife or political guidance . Absolutely. Political in the sense of dealing with people and appointments, that sort of thing. We dont have evidence, because there is no record, really, of him coming to her with weighty legislative decisions. You mentioned earlier that Civil Service reform was becoming a very important issue. People who saw that movie lincoln will see how patchy those jobs were to help influence the president. So what was the bubbling controversy over patronage, and what was the reform that people wanted to employ . Well, we get a little bit ahead of the story because you have this with garfields assassination and death, you have this man come into the white house, and everyone was like, oh my gosh, this was like the worst. Talk about a man who has benefited from political patronage, arthur has never been elected to any office. He was the collective of the port of new york, and at a high position in new york state during the civil war, but it was all political patronage. And roscoe conkling, the kingmaker of the stalwarts in new york said that the doors were open and will get all the political plums, and president arthur says no. Im going to change my stripes and were going to be honest. And Chester Arthur is the man who initiated the first Civil Service reform. Well, were going to learn that he was described as a frustrated offi