Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency James Garfield Assassination 20240712

Garfield is one of the most intelligent president s we have ever had. He is up there in the top half dozen and when we go through his life, by the end of the middle of it, and youre going to say no, that cant be. He cant be that good in that field. Its just not possible, and then well find something else, and youre going to no. He is just incredibly bright, and the hope for his presidency was enormous, and were going to discuss an absolutely brilliant human being. I was chatting with a friend before, and he asked me if i thought garfield was the most intelligent. I dont know how you test Something Like that, and its not as if you give president s iq tests. Its a lot easier with things that are easy to measure, tall ask short. We all know that madison was our shortest president , lincoln was our tallest president because thats easy. I dont know how you know who the most intelligent. Certainly the two adams, jefferson, madison and Lincoln Garfield is right up there. So one of the reasons its so exciting is because of who he and was how he changed america. Last week when we discussed lincoln we were discussing had lincoln not been shot how america would have been different. Would the south be so far behind the rest of the country even today in education and health care and so many other areas . Would africanamericans had suffered for over a hundred years the way they did had lincoln been in charge of reconstruction instead of Andrew Jackson and the south that didnt really care about the africanamericans. So one of the reasons today that is so interesting is the brilliance of garfield and the second is, the other main character in our story, charles getault and it shows the failure of the Mental Health system in the country then and today. There is no doubt in my mind that charles gito was mentally ill and it was not treated properly then even though they knew as well discuss, for example. They told his father he needs to be institutionalized. Hes nuts and the father agreed and then they said that putting people in sanitariums they have to pay and the father said i cant pay so they didnt institutionalize him. The contrast between garfield and his assassin is so astounding. Last week a gentleman came up to me and asked me to recommend a book at each of the subsequent talks. I didnt do that last week, my failure and so i was asked when he said that, i thought that was a very good idea and obviously, when you prepare talks like this, i used lots and lots and lots of sources, secondary books and primary sources and a lot of the primary sources are now available on the internet so you can read the letters of garfield and the diaries and it is quite easy to get primary sources now. I used a lot of different sources, but if i have to recommend one book i will do that for garfield, mckinley and kennedy. In the case of garfield, a book called destiny of the republic, a tale of madness, medicine and a murder of a president by candace melard. Its a wonderful read. She is an excellent writer and if i were to read one book on this topic it would be this. I use it, but i used a lot of other its as well and that would be one book. Theres no assignment and a couple of members of my book club are here today and were not going to discuss it, but it would be the one book to take a look at. I remember the year, with thenthen thencongressman Dick Gephardt who was running for president. I knew dick quite well. We were good friends and i was chatting with him and i asked him, do you know the last member of the house who was elected from the house to become president . And he said no, and i said let me give you a hint. Do you know who the only member of the house who was elected straight from the house to be president . And he still said no, and i said garfield, and he said they shot him. I said, well youre running for the job. Im not. But garfield, as well see in a brief period was president elect, senator elect from ohio and sitting congress man all at the same time. Fascinating, fascinating guy. At the time he was elected president , he was by far the youngest president wed had in American History to that date. Only two american president s in our history died before reaching the age of 50, kennedy and garfield. Obviously both for sad reasons, but hes the only house member, and im trying to think quickly. On the democratic side, no one from the house is running and on the republican side no one either that im aware of, and its not a jumping stoner or a steppingstone for the presidency and it occasionally happens that a house member tries to run for president , but not that often. Even senators in the 20th century, only two senators went straight from the senate to the white house, harding and kennedy. Obviously, obama did, and this time cruz, rubio and rand paul so the three senators are trying to move from the senate, but not that often from the house. Vice president s, not that many either, only three that i can think of went straight from the vice press denidency, jefferson bush, van buren, and on to garfield. Gar fe garfield was born in 1831 by the time he was elected in 1831. We should put him up there. He served nine consecutive terms in the house and his presidency lasted only 200 days. He was inaugurated in march. He was shot on july 2nd and he died in september. He lingered and well talk a little bit about his medical care and what happened to him. Garfield, James Garfield was the youngest of five children. He was born in absolute, extreme poverty. This is a recreation of his house in ohio and his family lived in a log cabin and they were so poor that they couldnt afford to put down a log floor. So it was a dirt log cabin. His father, abraham died when garfield was 18 months old leaving his mother to raise five children on her own. So its a single mom with five kids and no money. Garfield, the family was so poor he did not have his first pair of shoes until after he was 4 years old. Later on, when people admired how he rose from total poverty to becoming president of the United States, he didnt roamant size this at all and said let us praise poverty as a means of raising children, but you do need to really have a sense of awe about his mother eliza to be able to pull this off, to go from such poverty and again, ill keep stressing that to get his son into the white house, and he moves into the white house with him. She later claims, she thought and im not sure if she was right or wrong, she claims to have been into the first president s mother to move into the white house to take care of the kids. A remarkable woman herself. She was fiercely proud that she never accepted aid from anyone. They worked hard and from her, they gained a sense of love of learning, of education and that defines his life. He, more than anything else, schooling, education for himself and when hes president for the country is a key to understanding him. When his brother, his oldest brother thomas was 11, thomas left home to work on other peoples farms to help raise money and he would send the money back to or give the money back to mom. When james turned 11 he said its time for me to do the same thing, if thomas leaves home at 11 to work on farms, i will, and mom said no. She realized there was something very, very special about this kid and she said woyoure stayi in school. Well support you and youre staying in school. It shapes his mind and it shapes his attitude and creates opportunities that otherwise never would have existed. Garfields parents were both members of the church of christ. He was never particularly religious growing up and then at age 19, he decided to go to church and his speaking skills were so good on his first day in churc church, he asked, the pastor said would you like to say a few words and he was so remarkable that you need to go and travel around to other churches and give sermons, and people who heard him preach said that if he decided to make his career in the ministry, he would have been one of the leading clergymen. If hed gone to the church he would have been the best in the country. And he resigns when he becomes president and in his statement he said i resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States. Garfield at age 16, his rival most took a major change pf all of a sudden, he decided enough with school, i want to go and i want to have a life on sea which was interesting because he couldnt swim and no one knew why he did this, and so he was living hundreds of miles away from the ocean, so the closest he could find was to get work on the canals, on the ohio and erie canal. So at age 16 he drops out of school. Mom is totally devastated. He later said i broke my mothers heart as she feared this would end her high hopes for me. And he takes a job working on a canal boat and unfortunately, a few days after hes on the boat, on the canal boat he couldnt swim. All of a sudden he falls off the boat, and he cant swim and so hes going under and he grabs a rope and he yanks on the boat on the rope and hes able to pull himself up on to the boat and then he noticed that the rope wasnt attached to anything, but it got caught in a crack in the wood of the boat and saved his life, and he said he was somehow able to pull himself up on this, and he said i did not believe god paid any attention to me on my own account, but i came to believe he saved me from my mother and for Something Better than canalling and so he went home and said enough of this. So he was a totally changed young man thinking, ahh, this is something that i dont know why this happened, but god is sending me a signal. He also got very sick. He caught malaria, and he was so sick after ten day, the fever broke and they thought he was okay and then he had a severe relapse and for two months no one knew if he was going to survive. When he finally survived and when he finally recovered his health, mom and brother thomas went to him and they said thomas had saved 17 so far of money he hadnt given to the family, and they said were giving you this money on one condition. You go back to school, and so he attended a number of local schools and when he reached age 20, he decided its time to go on to the equivalent of college and he went to western reserve eclectic institute which later came to be known as hirem college and he took a job as a janitor. He would get up at 4 00 or 5 00 in the morning and he would chop wood so the other students would have fires in their rooms. He would then go and work in the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the other students and then he would join them in class and then he would go and work in the kitchen to help them with lunch and then afterwards,y h he woul clean the latrines and go back into his room and study. He was a janitor in his first year. By his second year he was promoted to assistant professor because in his first year he learned and became fluent in greek and latin and was able to read virgil in the original. Again, its every time you go through this you say this is amazing. How is this possible . If you think its impressive that he was fluent in greek and latin after one year, this teacher said his best subject was math. Just to give you an idea of how good he was at math when he was in congress, he was bored for a while and so he developed a trapezoid proof of the pythagorean theorem which was then published in the new england journal of education and apparently garfields math is still taught in graduate math programs today, but despite his ability in both math and languages, his interest was science, and so he studied the latest scientific discoveries. So again, remember, hes taking a full course load as a student and hes teaching. Hes an assistant professor. So in his second year he is teaching latin and one of his students was Lucretia Randolph and as you can see, this was one of his bedding pictures. He was the professor and she was 18, she was the student. Lucretia had unruly hair and he was dead earnest and determined to learn anything and everything that came his way. They had virtually opposite personalities. He was this bighearted, cheerful, outgoing guy. He wouldnt shake hands with people. He would give people bear hugs. People laughed with him. He was Great Company and people just loved being around this extroverted big, wonderful guy. She, on the other hand, was shy, softspoken, very private. In her diary she wrote that she was fearful that she would be considered cold and heartless. Their courtship was awkward, to put it mildly. Even though he was an incredible extrovert, he couldnt talk to her. He couldnt tell her what he felt about her and she couldnt talk to him and her. She couldnt talk to him. This is not a good thing if you are courting. It seems the first time that he was able to tell her what he thought of her was by letter. And he took a tour of niagra falls and he writes her a letter in which he says, please pardon the liberty i take in pointing my pen towards your name. For this evening i have taken in so much scenery that i cannot contain it all myself. Not exactly a love letter. But its the first time that hes telling her, im thinking about you. She was even more shy and reserved than he was. Neither of them were able to tell each other that they really felt quite strongly about each other. And so in 1854 he leaves ohio and decides to finish college at Williams College in williamstown, massachusetts. Our new congressman went to Williams College and in fact when we visited don when he was the ambassador to switzerland, we brought him a copy of this because both he and garfield share the same alma mater. When he was at williams, he was the best student there. He was a skilled debater. He was a skilled writer. He became editor of the williams quarterly and in two years he add age 25, because he got a late start, he graduated from Williams College with the highest honors. He returns to western reserve to teach latin and greek to become a professor as well as other subjects and one year later hes selected to be president of the school. Youre going to keep laughing because its like, oh. He then realizes that the school is deeply in debt, has no endowment and he decides to become the chief fund raiser. Raises enough money so the school is able to survive very well and achieve financial viability. He resumes his awkward courtship of a woman he called creet. Both of remain unable to tell each other what they think. One day she hands him her diary and says just read this. In the diary its full of pages about how much she loves him. And so finally on november 11, 1858, the 27yearold James Garfield marries the 26yearold Lucretia Randolph after an 11year courtship. Here she is. If the courtship was difficult, the beginning of the marriage was pretty much worse. They had great difficulty figuring out, okay, now that were living together, what do we do . And as a result, it became more difficult because he was never home. In the first five years of marriage, they spent less than five months together because of the civil war and because of everything else. And their separation, their difficulty of communicating with one another made it very difficult for them at home alone. Their first child, eliza, same name as james mother, they called her trot, she unfortunately dies at age 3 and they grieve separately instead of together. Its a difficult period and in 1864 when he was a congressman and she was in ohio, he thought he totally ruined their marriage because he had an affair with a young widow in new york named Lucia Gilbert calhoun. She was a reporter for the new york tribune. He felt guilty, went home and confessed it to his wife assuming that the marriage is now over. She forgives him and says its time for us to figure out how to make this thing better. From that moment they felt passionately in love with each other. They decided that they were going to do the best they could together with each other and after that maybe for the first time, they almost couldnt bear to be apart. He later wrote, we waited a long time for this love to come, but it is here to stay. He later wrote that lucretia became the life of my life, the love of my love. He wrote, you cannot know how much i need you, how much i miss you, how much i love you. I can hardly bear to be away from you. So from the moment that they really jump started their marriage, they were this happily married couple. It took them a long time to get there. Once they were there, they were really there. They ultimately wind up having seven children. So they were there. Sadly, two of them, trot as i mentioned and their son eddie passed away before neither reached their 4th birthday. But five did become mature adults. The five who survived to adulthood all did extremely well because they were they had great parents. And particularly after he passed away, she did a great job of raising them afterwards. While he was president of western reserve he decided this isnt enough to keep me busy. So he decided to study law. Youre going to keep laughing. So in 1859 he studies law and two years later hes admitted to the ohio bar. It turns out he was an absolutely brilliant lawyer. But unfortunately for his legal career, the civil war came first and he was elected to congress and so he had to put law aside. And so he didnt actually engage in the practice of law until right after the civil war. The first case he argues, of course, was in front of the Supreme Court. Its the first time he had ever been a courtroom arguing a case. It was in front to have the Supreme Court. It was called ex parte milital gantt which is taught in law today. Its a case on how to deal with civilians during combat times and it is decided today as well, particularly garfields arguments at the time. Two things stalled his legal career, politics and the war. The garfield did not consider himself to be an abolitionist but he was fiercely opposed to slavery and very, very eagerly supportive of not eagerly, but very, very passionately supportive of the rights of africanamericans to be equal citizens in this country. A number of freed slaves, he put them up, one stayed with him for a while and he gave him what little money he had to try to help this escaped slave. He was enormously update when john brown was hanged. He said this is a dark day in the history of our country. And then in his diary, of course in latin, he writes, slavery, be damned. He would his diary would switch between latin and greek and english. He was obviously from what you can pick up of this guy, its no surprise that people were drawn to him and were very impressed with him. In 1859, a state senator in ohio died and the Republican Party, which is relatively new, comes to him and says youre opposed slavery, youre for emancipation, youre for the union, would you run for state senate . He says i know nothing about politics. They said, give it a try. And he wins overwhelmingly at his first attempt in Public Office and that begins a political career in 1959, elected excuse me, 1859 to 1861. Within 20 years hes president of the United States. Its an absolutely remarkable story. And he probably would have gone on to do very well as a lawyer, as a politician, and then the civil war breaks out. When the civil war breaks out, garfield well, when hes not well leave him up there. When the civil war breaks out, he enlists as a private and four weeks later hes promoted to colonel. It gets better. He was one of the first to apply and he is appointed expand of the 42nd ohio volunteer infantry and is assigned to stop an invasion of kentucky, Eastern Kentucky, by the confederates. Abraham lincoln said i hope to have god on my side, but i must have kentucky. They were fearful that if the confederacy gained control of Eastern Kentucky, it would be able to split the union. And so they were very, very concerned and they didnt have enough troops and they didnt have a seasoned leader of these troops and so they sent garfield with about 1,000 men, not enough artillery, and said, repel the invasion. The confederates were led by general humphrey marshal who had graduated number one in his class from west point a year after garfield was born. Hes a seasoned military expert. Hes told to stop them. He said, how . They said, thats why youre in charge. And so garfield decides to study geography and maps, which he had not done before. He spends three days locked up in his room studying maps and comes up with a plan where he splits his thousand troops into three, about 330 each, and attacks the confederate from three sides. They think that theyre outnumbered 31 when they actually have more than 21 majority. They surrender and leave. This is known as the battle of middle creek. It is the battle that helped save Eastern Kentucky for the union. As a result, garfield gains nationwide recognition in the north and is promoted to brigadier general. Hes been in the army four months. Typical of garfield when he spoke of the battle of middle creek, he never spoke about his role in this, but only spoke of the sadness that he felt about the number of both union and confederate young boys who died and who were injured. In early 1862 friends of his came up to him and said, would you like to run for congress . He said, i dont have time. They said, would you let us put your name in . And he said, i dont care, do what you want. In october of 1862, hes elected to congress by a 21 majority in his district in ohio. He did not have time to campaign. After the election he shows up in washington. Not to be a congressman, but to get his next military duty. And he is appointed he goes to help general grant at the battle of shiloh. Grant says that he would not have survived shiloh if garfield had not come and repelled the forces of Albert Sidney johnson and the hero of shiloh was garfield. In 1863 he returns as chief of staff to general william rosecrantz. He comes to the conclusion is that one of the big flaws of the union army is that it doesnt have good intelligence. He complains and says we dont have a good Intelligence Unit so he creates one. He turns out to get a reputation as a military genius. Hes the principal strategist for taking over chattanooga. In 1863 his health deteriorates. He suffers from jaundice, significant weight loss and infectious hepatitis. He goes home and his wife nurses him back to health. At this point when hes back in good health, he goes to washington and lincoln says, youre a superb general. Youre a superb intelligence. You are a superb strategist, i need you in congress. Youve been elected to congress. You havent fulfilled your duties here. Were fighting against some of the real crazies, please serve in congress. And so heres congressman garfield with his daughter eliza trot who sadly enough dies at age 3. When he gets to congress, his first speech calls for emancipation. He gains tremendous respect among his colleagues as a wonderful speaker. According to one reporter, when he takes the floor, garfields voice is heard above all others. His eloquent words move the heart and tell the weak and wavering which way to vote. Garfield serves nine terms, 18 years in the house, he becomes one of the most influential and respected members of congress serving as chairman of several important committees. We dont have time to go through his whole congressional career. Number of very significant committees. Hes seen by his colleagues as one of the brightest members and thoughtful members and fairest members. Democrats go up to him as well because they like him and trust him. Hes a superb orator. He gives tremendous speeches on the house. When its when garfield is scheduled to speak, the galleries fill up. People know hes speaking in advance and they come to listen. He is also an incredible strategist on how to get bills through the house. When the civil war ends, hes one of the leading members of the house on how do you take this Enormous Army and put them back into civilian jobs . How do you close the army . How do you get people out of these and get them back into jobs . Hes particularly interested in finance because of his math background. And he uses his position on the house ways and Means Committee and as chair of the house banking and currenty committee to focus on the currency of the country. Hes very upset about the printing of money. He says greenbacks are the printed lies of the government and once the economy based on a Gold Standard which is totally opposed by his constituents in ohio who want more inflationary currency. He says, i dont care. Its better for the country. Another one of his Top Priorities is to create a department of education. He says we need to educate our people particularly africanamericans better. And in particular, those who are freed slaves, you cant just free people and let them go. You need to educate them because otherwise people are going to take advantage of them. And so he gets past the First Department of education which is then created, established, and collapses afterwards, not because of him but because of mismanagement. It takes decades before a new department of education is setup. Hes appointed chairman of the subcommittee and totally reworks how the consensus work and is how we count people and the information. As a result of the consensus taken that he established, we now have far greater understanding of who was living in america at the time. Shortly after he was reelected in 1864, lucretia sends him a note and says in the last 57 weeks we have been together less than 20. He says, youre right. Come to washington and live with me. He brings his family to washington and he is as happy, probably, as he has ever been. He loves the house. He loves his colleagues. His wife is there. His family is growing. Hes got a little not a little, but he has a law practice on the side. Hes earning accidedecent money the kids in particular want a dog and well talk about the dog in a minute. Hes got the five kids and theyre in a rented small house and he says, its time for us to move to something bigger. And so they walk around washington and they look for a place to live and they cant find a place they like. He says, lets find an architect and he says, i can do this myself. He studies architecture for three to four weeks, designs a house, and the house that he designed became the model for houses and is the cover on the equivalent of architectural digest which has an editorial saying, if you would only give up politics, he would be the best architect in america. Keep laughing. My good friend who is here, his office is located on the site where garfields house was on 13th and i. Again, he was involved in all of the issues of the time that you can imagine. The impeachment of president johnson, i think we did lose nope. Okay. Sorry. The impeachment of president johnson, westward expansion, reconstruction, he speaks very forcefully in favor of the 15th amendment. He constantly goes on the floor to attack the ku klux klan and racism. One more issue to mention because its important is his commitment to Civil Service reform. At the time if you wanted a federal job, you basically bribed someone to give you one. You would to the victor belong the spoils, whoever wins elections would appoint their friends and would expect their friends then to make contributions or gifts to whoever gets them the job. Garfield felt that it was time to have most federal jobs based upon merit, not upon who you know or what you can buy. And hes one of the leaders of trying to get Civil Service reform. This becomes important because this was why he was killed. The main black mark against garfield when he was in the house was he got caught up in one of the largest scandals of the time, the app scam of its time known as the credit mobile scandal. Essentially, stock in credit mobile yea which was a Construction Company and the Union Pacific railroad. There were some uncroskroup you lou dealings. He sold his shares. He got tainted a little bit because of his involvement in the scandal but he really i didnt cause him great difficulty. In 1876, garfields son died and this time because he and lucretia were able to born together. As sad as the passing was, it brought this happily married couple finally together because they could share the grief. In 1879 a series of political events take place that are mindboggling that no one could have predicted. The republican leader of the house of representatives was james blaine of maine. Blaine decides he would rather be a senator. In those days, senators are not elected by the people, they are elected by the state legislature. So blaine says, i want to be senator. They say fine, and hes elected to be the senator. Leaving vacant the leadership of the. In the house. The republicans were then the majority. And they select garfield to be the republican leader. In todays terms, hes nancy pelosi. Hes the leader of the Minority Party in the house. And he is thrilled. He thinks this is great. He loves the house. Hes happy as can be. And he is the leader of the republicans there. This is the last years of the presidency of rutherford b. Hayes. Well talk about him more next week, hayes won the contested president ial election in 1876 in which hayes got less votes than Samuel Tilden and also got probably less electoral votes. But because of florida [ laughter ] you cant make this up. We were together with al gore on Election Night in nashville in 2000 and i had a discussion with gore that this reminds me of the tilden hayes election of 1876 in which tilden went to bed thinking he won. He got far more votes and in the electoral college, he was one short. And the question was, where would florida go. And florida then sent two sets of electors, one republican and one democrat. Washington didnt know what to do with it. And so they set up a commission on whose electoral votes to count. They picked five house members, three democrats, two republicans, they picked five senators, three republicans, two democrats, and they picked five Supreme Court justices, two democrats, two republicans and the only independent on the court who realized that he could cast the deciding vote so he quits, resigns from the Supreme Court. There is no other democrat or independent on the court. They appoint a republican and hayes wins because of the vote of one Supreme Court justice picking the votes from florida. Of course that would never happen in our lifetime. [ laughter ] hayes has a difficult time as president and vetoes quite a number of things passed by the democrats in congress and its garfields task to sustain the president s veto. Garfields kids want a dog. He gets them a dog and they name it veto. So you got to love the guy. Hes brilliant. Hes happy. Hes got the five kids. Hes got the dog. Hes got the house that he built. Everything changes in 1880 and no one could have predicted it. Hayes announces hes not running for reelection which is okay because no one would have renominated him. Its up to the republicans to pick the nominee. The Republican Party in 1880 is divided into two warring factions. They hate each other. It makes our current politics look tame. The two factions, one is called the stalwarts and the other is called the half breeds. The stalwarts defend the spoil system. The only way to get a job is someone appoints you to the victor belong the spoils. They hate the south. They wanted revenge and they dont particularly care about africanamericans. The half breeds want Civil Service reform and want better education for the africanamericans who were free before and who were freed as a result. As mentioned, garfield meafeels more comfortable with the half breeds. The leader of the stalwarts is Roscoe Conkling. Hes a loyal supporter of president grant so much so that grant allowed conkling to pick anyone he wants to be the port collector of new york. A very, very lucrative position. And if you get this job, the only thing you have to do is give money to Roscoe Conkling and the Republican Party. Show loyalty. And so Roscoe Conkling is making so much money from the port of new york and his buddies running it are making so much money that when president grant offers to appoint conkling to the Supreme Court, he turns it down and says i cant afford it. It would rather be senator from new york and control the port of new york currency coming in. The Customs House of new york, conkling appoints his good buddy to be in charge, a man by the name of chester a. Arthur. The same guy who becomes president of the United States. Who is seen as so corrupt but he run it is port Customs House in new york. Hayes then tries to remove Chester Arthur as the port collector of new york and conkling blocks him. Hayes says congresslikling is a thoroughly rotten man because he keeps the corrupt system going in new york. Conkling is feared, he is slavishly obeyed, hes despised. He has one major detractor in the United States congress and that is the former congressman and now senator from maine james g. Blaine. Blaine ridicules conkling for, quote, his haughty disdain, his majestic overpowering turkey gobbler strut. Why cant our politicians today talk like that . Conkling vows that the only goal he has left in life is to block blaine from the one thing he wants more than anything else and that is to be president. He says if i keep blaine from becoming president , then my lifes ambitions are accomplished. 1880. Hayes is not running for reelection. Blaine announces he wants to run for president. Conkling says, i got to block him. In order to block him, you need a candidate. And conkling comes up with a candidate. Ulysses grant. This raises some questions. George washington said you only serve two terms. It was the precedent. Since grant has served two terms and left, if he comes back and runs again, is that okay . And they didnt know. This is before Franklin Roosevelt and the change in our system. It wasnt illegal or unconstitutional for him to run again. But people wondered, is a third term that is not contiguous a third term, or is it a first term for the second time. And thats the way they phrased it. Grant did not want to be president again. He didnt like the job. But he was not in good health and was broke. And he needed a job. And so he allowed conkling to put his name in nomination. So the two main figures for the republican nomination in 1880 are james blaine of maine and former president ulysses grant. A third candidate appears. The third candidate is john sherman of ohio. He had been the treasury in the hayes administration. He is t now we have three major figures. John sherman goes to garfield and says, garfield, will you be my Campaign Manager. Garfield says, yes, i would be honored. Sherman decides to resign from the senate in order to devote his full time to run for president. That leaves a vacancy for the ohio senate. Voters dont vote for the senators. The state legislatures do. The state legislature of ohio picks as the next senator from ohio James Garfield. Garfield is the republican leader in the house and the senator elect from ohio. Okay . Its going to get better. The Republican Convention takes place in chicago which is showing many of the ill effects from the famous fire. Blaines name is placed in nomination. Conkling gets up and in a moments grant, citing him as our former president , the hero of appomattox. At this point then, it is time to nominate sherman, and garfield gives the nominating speech. Its a remarkable speech. He says its time for america to live up to the true principles of the constitution, namely that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal before the law. And the place goes nuts and everyone says, maybe were picking the wrong guy from ohio . This guy hes brilliant and hes an orator and wonderful and sherman, hes okay. Each convention determines for themselves how many how the procedure works. You needed 379 votes of delegates. Todays conventions are a big party. We know in advance by the time you get to the convention who the nominee is going to be. In those days they nominated people. They needed 379. No one is even close. So they take a second ballot and a third ballot and a fifth ballot and a tenth ballot and its the same three and they shift five or six but nothing is changing. On the 14th ballot, a delegate from pennsylvania casts his one vote for garfield. Garfield jumps up and says, im the Campaign Manager for sherman. Im not a candidate. I will not accept the nomination. The chair rules garfield out of order, tells him to shut up and sit down. He goes back. On the 34th ballot, the delegates from wisconsin cast all of their votes for garfield. Garfield, again, jumps up and says, im not a candidate. Im the manager for sherman and again is told, youre out of order, sit down and shut up. On the 36th ballot, theres a shift for garfield who on the 36th ballot receives 399 votes, 20 more than is necessary, and gets the nomination to be the republican candidate for president. As he walks out of the convention hall, a reporter comes up to him and says, general, this is wonderful. And garfield says, i wish it had not happened. This is the worst day of my life. Okay. So now you have a half breed as the president ial candidate. Who do you select as the Vice President ial candidate . You need a stalwart. So conkling names his buddy Chester Arthur who had been fired for corruption to be the Vice President ial candidate. Chester arthur had never run for Political Office. He was not in chicago. He did not know that he would be nominated for anything let alone Vice President of the United States and when he found out, when he got a cable saying youve been nominated for Vice President , he thought that the Western Union broke. He says, what do you mean . Im not a candidate. Well, yes, he was. So arthur had been paid 50,000 a year as port collector which is enormous in those days. Forced out on grounds of corruption. Never had any office. Never run for any office and is suddenly running for Vice President and everyone said, it doesnt matter. Garfield is the youngest man to run for president in American History to that point. He becomes the youngest president to date to be elected. Hes in good health. Hes 62. Hes in great physical shape. He has a wonderful family who cares about who is going to be Vice President. Its irrelevant. Hes another Campaign Poster of garfield and arthur. The democrats name another civil war hero at the time, win field Scott Hancock to run for president. In the popular vote, out of close to 9 million cast, 8. 9 million votes cast, garfield wins by 7,000 votes nationwide. Suddenly we have president garfield, this is the official picture of garfield as president , the only man ever elected to the presidency directly from house of representatives. So what is even more remarkable was that for a brief period of time he was a sitting member of the house and the leader of the party in the house and a senator elect and a president elect all at the same time. Garfield is sworn in on march 4, 1881. Heres garfield with his wife. He didnt have the money for his own horse and buggy. President hayes allows him to use his. Theres a lot of snow in washington at the time. Thousands of people come to see the youngest person ever to be president and heres garfields inauguration. In those days, it was done on the east wing of the capital. Today its done on the west wing. And garfield is in the capital waiting to come out and thousands of people are out there waiting for garfield to come out and three people walk out of the capitol and everyone goes, wow, wow. Wow first person to walk out, the new president , James Garfield, youngest man to be president. Next person to walk out is his mother. And he points to her, i wouldnt be here because of her. Next person to walk out, frie frederick douglass. And they go, an africanamerican standing next to the president on the capitol lawn . That symbolizes garfield more than anything else. After garfield is elected and moves into the white house, here he is being sworn in, james blaine is behind him here. Heres the official white house picture. Mom, garfield and the wife. She claims and i dont know if this is accurate. She claims to have been the first mother of a president to move into the white house to take care of the president s kids. Maybe true. I dont know. Garfields inaugural address will give us an idea of what he wanted to have happened. He emphasizes civil rights of africanamericans. He believes they deserve the full rights of citizenship and then goes on to say, but they must be literate or they will be taken advantage of. And stresses the need for universal education in america. Then he goes onto talk about agriculture as the key to american prosperity and says we have all of this land and were growing all of these crops and its all wonderful. But if we did scientific agriculture, if he studied how to improve our crops, to improve agriculture, we could double and triple the use of the land. I want the smithsonian to do research on how to improve the quality and the scientific nature of our argugricultural. And then he goes on an attack of the mormon church. It offends the moral sense of manhood. And he talks about Civil Service reform and says federal appointees should be based on merit not on who you know. The speech is applauded, people go nuts. They think this is wonderful. And after the speech, John Phillip Sousa leads the marine band with music he composed that we still use today. The president and his family, abram, james, lucretia, president garfield, irwin, harry and eliza, the mother. It was camelot to use the phrase from kennedys time. The president with his young family, with his wife whom hes in love with, mom is sitting there. Grows up in abject poverty in a dirt floor log cabin and reads latin and could have been an architect, could have been the best clergyman in america. Okay, he comes in and obviously the first thing he has to deal with is filling federal jobs. In those day, 100,000 federal jobs and Office Seekers come to the white house personally asking for jobs. He thinks this is awful. But first before he deals with the white house and the cabinet, he puts together his cabinet and he tries to split it between half breeds and stalwarts. He appoints james blaine to be secretary of state. Blaine is a half breed, believes in Civil Service reform. He appoints a number of conkling supporters to other key positions in the cabinet. And then he appoints a number of others who are neither half breeds nor stalwarts. For example, he appoints Robert Todd Lincoln, lincolns son to be the secretary of war. The feud between conkling and garfield breaks out almost immediately. Garfield appoints an enemy of conkling to be the port collector of new york. A judge by the name of william robertson. Conkling says you cant appoint to that job. Thats the job i control. Garfield says, im president. Conkling says, its a new york job, you cant do it without me. Garfield says, ive just appointed him. Conkling says, ill show you. Ill resign from the senate. And so he and the other senator from new york, thomas plat, both quit, believing that the New York Legislature will reappoint him to come back to the senate and that will show garfield, i have support, you have to get my guy in. The New York Legislature refuses to reappoint conkling or plat. Garfield views this as his first major victory as president. Its executive power. Its the principle of senatorle courtesy being weakened. Garfield wants nothing to do with Vice President ial Chester Arthur. He does not allow him to come to Cabinet Meetings. The plight of africanamericans is very much on his mind. And he believes that education for the blacks for the africanamericans is their way to a better quality of life and he appoints quite a number of key africanamericans to positions, frederick douglass, robert elliot, John Langston and quite a number of others. People are saying, wow, what a change. The next issue he faces is the growing National Federal debt. And he looks at the american treasury note and is notices theyre all held by new york banks. He says, i can do better. He goes up to new york and tells the banks, 200 million of federal notes youre controlling at 6 interest. The interest has changed to 3. 5 . You want to control these notes, you drop your interest rate. Theyre furious. They drop the interest rate. It reminds me of that scene in the movie dave where kevin kline sits in the white house and rearranges the book. Garfield figured this out, goes up to new york and saves millions of dollars in his first week as president. Lots of appointments we dont have time to go into. One of the more fun ones, we talked about him last week because he was one of the judges at the lincoln conspiracy trial and thats general lou wallace. Hes appointed to be the ambassador to turkey. He tells lou wallace, im appointing you to be ambassador to a Muslim Country so you can write another book. He gets involved with an ohio senator to try and draft Civil Service reform. Sadly, it only passes after garfields death. Good point for us to stop here and shift to the second character in our story. And theres nothing more different than this absolutely brilliant, latin and greek scholar, lawyer, architect who designs his own house, mathematician that comes up with a pythagorean theorem. Charles guiteau was born in illinois. Moves to new york as a young man because he wants to go to nyu and is inadequately prepared and flunks the entrance exam. He moves to michigan to take courses and quits this after a couple of weeks deciding hes not very good at schooling in his phrase. And he joins a ereligious sect known as the Oneida Community which practices free love and sexual freedoms, to put it mildly. Group marriage. Despite the fact that they have Group Marriage and sexual freedom, none of the women want anything to do with him. In fact they refer to him as charles get out. And so he feels slighted by this. He quits and moves to new jersey where he attempts to start a newspaper. This fails. He goes back to oneida, stays there for a little while and is thrown out. He then gets married to a librarian. She would later say this was the most awful period in her life. He abused her physically, verbally, beat her periodically, they were constantly on the run. They would go into motels or che cheap boarding houses and skip out before paying the bills and finally after a brief period of time she left him because of his behavior. He moves to chicago where somehow he gets a law license. In those days, you didnt have to go to law school, you could practice law and he meets a lawyer who asks him three questions, he gets two of them right, and the lawyer says you just passed the bar. And so he becomes a lawyer. All he his happiest moments as a lawyer is reading his business cards that say Charles Guiteau, attorney at law. He argues only one case. He loses. Its thrown out and so he spends most of his time as a lawyer, as a bill collector which he does rather poorly. At one point, he sues the New York Herald for 100,000 because they wrote an article about him saying he represented a client to get 350 back. He got half of that and pocketed it as his fee. The New York Herald wrote about it and said dont use this guy as your bill collector. He sued them and then they threw it out. He then decides that he moves in with his sister, francis, whom he attacks with an ax. She in turn tries to have him institutionalized as mentally disturbed. A doctor interviews him and says, yes, he is. He runs away. He decides hes going to devote the rest of his life to god and become interested in theology. Writes a book called the truth which is pledagiarized from oth peoples writings word for word. But his biggest conclusion is that christ has already had his second coming. He travels around the country dropping off trains before they collect his tickets. His father is asked to put him in an institutional and found out he would have to pay for institutionalizing him and says he cant afford it. An event takes that changes his life. Hes on a ferry ride. The stonington slides with another ship. The other ship catches on fire. Dozens of people lose their lives but guiteau survives and becomes convinced that this is proof that god has a higher plan for him. And the higher plan for him is to get involved in politics. So he decided to write a speak to help the next republican president ial candidate, grant. He writes a speech on why people should vote for grant. Then garfield gets the nomination. He crosses out grant and writes garfield. Thats the only change in the speech. He then is able to get a small audience in new york to come and listen to him, but most of them walk out. Its about a dozen people show up to hear him. And they walk out. But he becomes convinced that it was this speech that helped garfield win new york and get the electoral votes of new york and if it werent for this speech, garfield would not be president. And as a result, when garfield is elected to president as president , he sends him a letter, we won. We cleaned them out. Just as i expected. So then he writes and says, okay, now that i got you in as president , i want a job. Spoil system. I got you in as president. You owe me. I want to be the ambassador to vienna. Give him credit. He doesnt stick on that for long. After a while, he looks into vienna and says, i really dont want that. I want to be the ambassador in paris. So he at the time president s met with job seekers. So somehow he goes in and meets with garfield in the white house. And he hands him a copy of the speech, grant crossed out, garfield up there, and writes on it, paris consulship. Hes convinced so he is now convinced that garfield will go through the files, pick his out, and name him ambassador to paris. A few days later he goes to the white house to find out whats happened to his application. And hes told the president cannot see you today. So he figures, that means the president can see me tomorrow. So he goes back to the white house day in and day out. And he is meeting frequently with the president s staff outside and they of course think that this man is nuts. He spends a lot of time sitting in Lafayette Square waiting to meet people. Somehow he meets Vice President Chester Arthur and says, i got you guys elected in new york. Chester arthur being from new york was surprised and he says, i would appreciate your help in becoming ambassador to paris. And arthur says thats a president ial appointment. I cant help you. At this point he is running out of paper for his letters. So he goes to the rigs hotel and starts taking paper from the hotel and the clerk at the hotel says, youre stealing our paper. And he says, dont you know who i am, im going to be the next ambassador to paris. Then he bumps into and goes to see secretary of state blaine and says, youre secretary of state, ambassadors fall under the state department, i would appreciate your help to become the next ambassador to paris. He does this so often that the state Department Says he can no longer come back. Hes told to stop this nonsense. He writes a letter to garfield and says i figured out the problem in your administration, its your secretary of state. Im willing to come to the white house tomorrow so we can figure out how to get rid of this guy because hes the problem. Obviously hes not getting anywhere. And he writes a letter to the president and he basically stops. On june 1st he decides this isnt going anywhere. This isnt working. But he has a visitor, god. And god talks to him and says its time for you to kill the president. He didnt think this was murder or an assassination. He thinks he was merely removing the president who was not doing a good job and replacing him with someone who would do a good job. And besides, he wouldnt be guilty because god has specifically asked him to do this. And so hes not to be blamed for this. So if hes going to kill the president , obviously you need a gun. Hes never had one. So he goes he borrows 15 and buys a gun. This is a photothat the smithsonian took of the gun. They have since lost the gun. He goes to a gun shop and hes told he has a choice of two guns. One has a wooden grip and one has an ivory grip. He says he would rather have the ivory grip because it would look better in a museum. Again, were talking about mental illness. The next thing he needs to do is figure out how the gun works. Someone shows him how the gun works. He goes out into the woods in washington and the filter rst te shoots it he gets knocked over from the recoil. Okay, now hes decided to kill the president. He starts following the president and stalking him. Waiting for the right opportunity. Its now time to return to the garfields. In midmay of 1881 mrs. Garfield suddenly contracts malaria and possible spinal meningitis and she her temperature at one point reaches 104. Shes doing quite poorly. And when her temperature su subsides, the doctors suggest she go to a seaside resort in new jersey. On june 18, garfield and mrs. Garfield take the train to go to new jersey so that she can rest from her illness. Guiteau decides to kill them. And he sees mr. Garfield and shes not doing well. And he doesnt want to upset her so he decides not to kill him. Garfield says up in new jersey with his wife. He has a Cabinet Meeting there. He meets with grant and then on june 27, 1881, he comes back to washington. A few days later on july 2nd, hes invited to be the featured speaker at his alma mater Williams College. In order to get up there, he needs to take the train. And he goes to the train station accompanied by james blaine and his two of his sons, james and harry. Heres the train station. That train station is today where the National Gallery of art is. My good friend who is one of the curators at the gallery told me that theres a plaque where garfield was shot. I havent seen it. But its somewhere in the National Gallery today. When i see eric next, im going to ask him where it is. Secretary of war, Robert Todd Lincoln is at the train station to greet him and he was poor Robert Todd Lincoln is at his fathers bedside when his father dies, hes next to garfield when garfield is shot and hes with mckinley when mckinley is not. After that he says he never wants to see another president again. Garfield enters the waiting room. Guiteau steps forward and shoots garfield in the back. Garfield yells out, my god, what is this . Guiteau fires again. I forget to mention, prior to shooting the president , a few days earlier, he figured he would temporarily be arrested for this and so he went to the d. C. Prison to get a tour to see if this is on a okay place for him to live. And they wouldnt let him in. Few times and figured this is okay. He gets to the train station by cab and tells the cab driver, could you please wait. I have some business here but ill be out in a few minutes. He shoots the president. The first bullet grazes garfields shoulder, the second hits him in the back, passing the first lumbar vertebrae, but missing the spinal cord. The bullet lodges nearly the liver. It could not be found until after the autopsy and it was found later behind the pancreas in some fatty tissue. Guiteau calmly puts the gun back in his pocket and turns to leave the station because he has a cab waiting for him. At this point, a policeman jumps on guiteau, wrestles him to the ground and is so excited that hes just wrestled the assassin of the president that he forgets to take the gun away. A crowd gathers yelling lynch him lynch him guiteau shows, im the stalwart of stalwarts. I did it. I want to be arrested. Arthur is president this leads some people to believe that arthur had something to do with the assassination. He didnt. Unlike the lincoln assassination of last week and the kennedy assassination in a few weeks where well talk a lot about conspiracy, no conspiracy here. We have one very deranged human being acting alone. He is thinking he did the best for the Republican Party. Garfield is conscious, but in shock. He is carried upstairs in the train station. With a bullet in his back. His sons and blaine burst into tears as does Robert Todd Lincoln. Lincoln says how many acts of sorrow have passed in this town . A physician by the name of Smith Townsend arrives at the train station. By this point in history, Joseph Lister had already written extensively on the need for sanitation, and the danger of sepsis caused by germs. And the need not to put germs into patients. But there are many in america who do not believe this, and we will come to this in a second, particularly with the doctor who is going to be one to have lead figures in our story, dr. Bliss. He comes and decides that the first thing to do is take the bullet out. Bullets can cause you harm if theyre moving. If they get into you and they have not caused the harm, you might survive for a long time. He sticks his finger, unwashed, into garfield, and this is the beginning of bad things. Garfield is in tremendous pain, but mostly concerned how will his wife take this news . And so he personally dictates a telegram to be sent to her. Im okay, dont worry about this, come to washington when you feel better. At this point, Robert Todd Lincoln makes a well meaning but incredibly tragic mistake. The mistake is, he calls for his own personal physician to come and be the physician. Here is another picture to have assassination. Here is blaine standing here. Pretty much shooting garfield at point plank. A man with the great first name doctor. Dr. Willard bliss one one of the attending physicians at lincolns deathbed. He is called by Robert Todd Lincoln. He is one of the leading experts in america who opposed lister. He had written a paper saying, what do you mean, germs can harm you . If you cant see them, they can cause you no harm. He immediately gets there and he sticks his finger in to see if he can find the bullet. He cant. So he goes into his medical bag and pulls out a probe. One that had been used on another patient and had not been sterilized or washed since. And sticks it into garfield, into the president s back. He tries to remove the probe, but it gets engaged between fragments and the end of the rip. So in order to get the probe out, he has to press down on the president s ribs so that the ribs would lift, there by causing a cavity to develop inside the president. He then sticks his finger back in to see if he can find the bullet. And he cant. At this point, another doctor, interesting iningly enough, an africanamerican doctor, had seen enough and said stop this. Remarkably bliss did. Then they decide they need to move the president to the white house. They take him to the white house and everyone decides there is no way that garfield will survive the night. This will be fatal. But mrs. Garfield says, gets the telegram, and decides to come down, shes not well, but she is going to come be with her husband if she could. A special train is brought together to bring her down. To make matters worse, 18 miles north of washington, the bars connecting the neng engine to t rest to have train snap. The train continues for two more miles ripping up the tracks. And the engine almost explodes. If it exploded everyone on the change, including mrs. Garfield would have been killed. Somehow she gets to washington, she gets to the white house. Late that night, garfield breaks into a broad smile, despite his pain, and says, thats my wife, now all will be well. She responds that she is there to nurse her husband back to health. Despite all of the confusion, and doctors running around, dr. Bliss decides its his turn to take command of the situation. He decides that hes going to be in charge of everything. The medicine, what would be done, where he could be. High on his suspects are people that believe in lister and sepsis. Anyone who accepts that has no right to see his patient. Bliss found the notion of invisible germs to be ridiculous, and refuses to even discuss it. For the next 80 days, the country has a death watch, watching whats happening to president garfield. Bliss issues a statement, if i cant save him, no one can. He considers the greatest threat to garfields health to be other doctors who will get in his way. Garfields personal physician, dr. Hyde baxter, shows up at the white house. Bliss says i know why youre here, and i wont tolerate it. Get out. Baxter says im the president s personal physician. Bliss says you were, but not because of this emergency. Bliss starts screaming at him. Garfield is lying right next to him, and dr. Baxter realizes this argument is not helping the president and walks away. There by conceding to bliss. Baxter cries out, ive been with the president for years, he is my friend. Bliss says friendship is not enough. I am the president s doctor. Other doctors later came and said why was bliss in charge . Bliss said because the president and mrs. Garfield asked for me to be in charge. Mrs. Garfield said she was never asked and would have never come to that decision. She had two other doctors in mind. The first was a doctor who was the president s first cousin and longtime childhood friend and close physician in ohio. When he came, he came and bliss says i dont need you here, but if you must be here you can be a nurse. The second doctor was her physician, a woman physician by the name of susan ann edison. She was such a familiar in the white house that garfield used to sing dr. Edison, dr. Edison, full of medicine, full of medicine. He loved her. Bliss said, women are good to be nurses, not doctors. So bliss was in charge. He issued daily bulletins on the president s health. His condition dock flew waited. Fevers came and went. He struggled to keep down solid food. Spent most of the summer eating little, only liquids. He was in excruciating pain for the last 80 days of his life. He refused to let the president be taken to a hospital. He said he will get better care in the white house. The summer of 1881 was one of the hottest in American History up to that point. Even worse, the plumbing system in the white house was over 100 years old, or almost 100 years old. The pipes were disintegrating. The water flowing through the white house was foul. The building was close to the tidal basin area that was not what it looks like now. Insects were around that summer over half a dozen servants in the white house came down with malaria. In order to protect the president from malaria, bliss said he should be given daily doses of quinine. Five to ten grams. Not only can that be fatal, but they cause intestinal cramping, and caused further problems for the president s already ravaged digestive system. It was so hot that they decided to develop an air conditioning system. It was the first air conditioner in america. They took a huge block of ice and they had fans blowing across into the they were able to lower the temperature in the president s room by 20 degrees. But it made so much noise that the president said i would rather have the heat than this noise. They had to shut it off. At this point, its time to introduce another one of the figures in our story. You know whats coming. Alexander graham bell, a major figure by now because he had invented the telephone. He decided to be helpful. Since bliss said the key thing was finding the bullet, and they did not have xrays at the time, he decided to develop a petal detector to try and find the bullet through metal. He worked feverishly to find the or come up with a metal detector. It worked. And they pulled out a number of civil war veterans that had bullets left over and it went click click click, there it is. They had something that looked like a telephone. It worked. He goes to bliss and he says i can find the bullet. Bliss says i dont believe you. He brings over civil war veterans, click, click, click, it works. They take it to the white house, they put it down and here he is trying to find it. Problem the bullet went to the right, click click click, there it is. It works. They open the president , no bullet. He was on a spring metal frame bed. It would have gone click click click no matter where they had it. So it didnt work, it wasnt used properly because he was lying on the bed. Garfield is bedridden for the summer. Graham belles thing doesnt work. They cant find the bullet. He is in extreme pain. He is starting to develop more infections. The infection is now so toxic it is a danger to anyone near him. While doing the operation, bliss accidentally slices his finger. Puss from the president gets in his finger, and as a result, he get what is they then call puss fever. His hand swells up so much that dr. Bliss has to put his hand in a sling for days afterward. Garfields weight draps from over 200 pounds to 130. Unable to keep food down. Bliss starts to fear that garfield will die of starvation. He is unable to keep any food down other than oat meet. He is suffering from profound dehydration. He cant keep hick bids down. In todays world that would be given an an virvegs, in those days he didnt have it. He begins to suffer from hallucinations. In the meantime, when hes lucid, he tells jokes, and he keeps particularly when mrs. Garfield is around, trying to put the best light on all of this. Mrs. Garfield suffers so much from the stress that her hair falls out, so she only wears a scarf or a hat on her head and finally its decided to get him out of the heat in washington and take him back to new jersey. On september 6th, a train takes him to new jersey in the belief and the hope that maybe the seaside, the better air, the fresh air, seeing the ocean will somehow revive him. Unfortunately, new infections set in, as well as spasms of angina. On monday september 19th. 1881, he suffers a massive heart attack and aneurysm, following blood poisoning and bronchial pneumonia. Dr. Bliss tries to revive the president. Garfields final words were, my work is done. Mrs. Garfield leans over her dieing husband and says oh, why was i made to suffer such a cruel wrong . Hes pronounced dead at 10 35 in the morning by dr. Bliss, and obviously Vice President Chester Arthur becomes the next president. Garfields body is taken back to washington where it lays in state in the capitol in the rotunda, before being take on the cleveland where he is buried september 26. He is survived by his mother, who dies seven years later in 1888. And his wife survives him for 36 years. Living a very quiet but seemingly comfortable life. The five children who went into adulthood all did very well. The eldest, harry, became a lawyer and professor of government at princeton. And like his father, became a University President at williams. James ii became a lawyer and would serve as secretary of the interior under teddy roosevelt. The third, irwin, became a lawyer. Abe ram, known as abe, became an architect. And molly, the daughter, mary was her name but everyone called her mollly, marries the top assistant that went to yale, and was sort of a second son. He becomes a successful investment banker. So the kids do very well. Most historians and doctors came to the same conclusion, and that is that garfield would have certainly survived if the doctors had left him alone. The bullet was in fatty tissue and in a week or two he would have been Walking Around and fine. He was in no danger. If he had been shot 15 years later, the bullet would have been found very quickly with an x ray machine. But it didnt happen. He would have been treated with because by then, america bought into lister. But at the time they didnt. He would have been back on his feet in a matter of days or a week. Unfortunately for garfield most americans at the time did not understand antisepsis. And the need for cleanliness to prevent infection. In addition, all of the probes of garfield in all likelihood punctured his liver as well when they were probing around into him. They had erroneously probed right when the bullet went left hard. And the autopsy about revealed pneumonia in both lungs and was filled with so much puss that it was uncontrolled septicemia. Cheste arthur was in new york when he found out that the president had died. His Immediate Reaction was, oh, no, tell me this isnt true. Arthur was known as a man of leisure. He liked fine wines and dinner parties. He spent a lot of time grooming his mustache and side burns. He was very proud of them. His wife died shortly before, so he moved in with Roscoe Conkling. So Roscoe Conkling at the time had a place in new york and thats who he was living with. When he first got the news, he said i hope, my god, i hope it is a mistake, but it was not a mistake. He travelled from new york to new jersey to be with mrs. Garfield, and to pay his respects. Time to move on to the trial. The case of the United States versus Charles Guiteau started in 1881 less than two months after garfields death. Americas greatest fear is he would be let off. He would be able to have a plea of insanity and they would let him off. The insanity defense was known at the time and used. And they were quite fearful. For quite a while, he could not find an attorney to representative because no one wanted to represent the assassin of the president. Finally he got schofield to represent him. He was a patent attorney, he had never tried a criminal case. Thats not what you want in an attorney. He was, however, the only attorney willing to take take the case. He said, if i did not think the unfortunate man was insane, i would not have defended him at all. His defense, of course, was insanity. As hard as it was to find an attorney, it was equally hard to find jurors. Everyone thought he was guilty. He was caught there. There was no question about it. They interviewed close to 200 people before they finally came up with 12. The trial was an enormous hoopla in washington. You needed tickets to get in. Even journalist, needed tickets, to get in to see the trial. He started his defense by asking if he could give a statement and his statement said he wanted to indict the president s true murderers, the doctors. He said i was the shooter, the killer were the doctors. The doctors that mistreated him should bear his death, not his assailant. They should be indicted for murdering James Garfield and not me. I deny the killing, your honor, i admit only the shooting. His behavior at the trial became increasingly bizarre. To put it mildly. He would constantly insult his defense team yelling at his brotherinlaw in the trial youre a jackass. I must tell you that in public i am sorry to say, youre a jackass. He would ask for legal advice from spectators with whom he would pass notes during the trial. He would speak when he felt like it. He would recite epic poems he wrote. He would get up periodically and sing john browns body. He claimed that he was not guilty because it was gods will that he shot the president and therefore, he was just carrying this out. He placed an ad in the New York Herald. It was a personal ad for an elegant Christian Lady of wealth, under 30, belonging to a first class family, object matrimony. He was looking to see if he could get married because of this. He said that the ladies should send him letters, which he would treat in utmost confidence. He couldnt understand that the public was angry at him, even when two attempts were made to assassinate him. When he was leaving the court. Including a man by the name of William Mason that got close enough to shoot him jack ruby style, but shot and got his coat but didnt hit guiteau himself. As the trial wore on, he began to say that he was sane before the assassination. Insane just prior and during, and sane again. That therefore he should released promptly and given a job as ambassador to paris. You know, once you set your sights on a job, you may as well try and keep it. He also actively began to prepare to get on the lecture tour. Okay, this is the picture. By the way, he allowed photos to be taken which he would autograph for payment. Woody allen once said that he, his grandfather had a marvelous watch he sold to him on his death bed. What do you pay when youre on trial for the death of the president . What do you do with it . He was very surprised when the jury issued a verdict, unanimous, in less than an hour, january 25th, 1882, finding him guilty. When the verdict was issued, there was tremendous applause. He then appealed and wrote a letter to president arthur saying, the only reason you are president is because of me, and if i hadnt shot him, you wouldnt be president. You owe me. Two things. Pardon me. And by the way, i need a job. Obviously this didnt happen. He was hanged on june 30th, 1882, three days short of the second anniversary of the assassination of garfield. He wrote a lengthy people, which he said really was not a poem, it was a song, and he asked an orchestra to play so he could sing his song on the way to the gallows. He was allowed to read his poem but there was no orchestra. A few matters to clear up before we get to some questions. Remarkably, Chester Arthur turned out to be a far better president than anyone, including Chester Arthur, could have predicted. He owed more than any man in the country he owed to the spoil system. He was fired from that. First thing he did was break off all contact with conkling. He said, you are corrupt, i want nothing to do with you. Conkling felt totally angered by this, to put it bluntly. He then worked to pass the pendleton Civil Service act, creating tests for people to get jobs and to create the Civil Service commission. Only 10 of federal jobs were covered at the beginning, but obviously it set the whole stage for everything we have here in washington now. And it passed january of 1883. It is the legacy of garfield that came because, obviously, his passing. Conkling was furious with him. To his amazement, when they met, Chester Arthur told him, your behavior is outrageous. He realized he was powerless to control the man whom he had created, and he went back to his room sick with rage. He felt this betrayal was even worse than when the legislature hadnt renamed him to be senator from new york. Arthur was an honest, decent president. Not a great one, but certainly for the times did a good enough job. That said, the republicans did not renominate him for president after his term ended. And instead the republicans nominated james blaine who ran against Grover Cleveland, and Grover Cleveland turned out to be the only democrat elected between Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Other than cleveland, no dem democrat was elected president. Cleveland was elected twice, but other than that the only democrat. Arthur went back to new york where hes diagnosed with brights disease, an excruciatingly painful kidney disease, painful at the time, and dies at the age of 56. Conkling gives him a speech at his funeral and refers to him as his accidency. Conkling falls dead himself walking home from his girlfriends house in a blizzard and dies of pulmonary emphysema. Dr. Bliss hoped that this case would tremendously thrust him into the leadership of america. Obviously the opposite happened. The entire medical community in the United States turned on him. Within months after garfields death, the boston medical journal printed an article criticizing bliss for not doing too little but doing too much. Bliss has zone more to cast more distrust upon surgery than any other in American History. And concluded the bullet was not necessarily fatal. Another medical journal ended their criticism of dr. Bliss by quoting the poet thomas gray who a century earlier had written, ignorance is bliss. Bliss, of course, rejected this criticism and said that no one in the country could have treated the president better, and as a result sent a bill to the congress for his services for 25,000, which in those days was enormous. The congress debated the matter and agreed to give him 6,500. He was so outraged at this that he complained bitterly at the notoriously inadequate compensation and turned it down. Seven years later he would die following a stroke, never recovering his health, his practice or his reputation. The outrage, interestingly enough, at the president s assassination did not focus on the fact that there was no guarding of the president s, and it was not until after mckinleys death that they established the secret service to guard the president , something well talk about next week. What they focused on instead was the cause, the need for Civil Service reform. Garfield himself was mourned in the country. It was almost like the kennedy assassination, this young, vibrant, brilliant with this great family, camelot is over. And hundreds of thousands of people waited hours in the rain to walk past the president s casket in the rotunda. In cleveland, more than 150,000 people, which was equal to the entire population of the city, came to the president s funeral and to pay their respects. A wreath was sent to the United States by queen victoria, and it adorned his coffin as it was taken to his final resting place. He was permanently interred, was moved in 1890 and ultimately mrs. Garfield joined him when she was buried as well. And this evening as i walked over here from my office, i walked past this. The garfield memorial in front of the house of representatives, which those of you i keep referring to my day job as i make house calls. My father was a physician. He made real house calls. Im the type of doctor that you call if you need footnotes. But i walk daily past the garfield statue. Its a 9foot bronze statue in front on the west side of the capitol right near the helicopter land pad. It will occur to some of you on the way home. The gyrocopter, im sorry. Its located just below the Capitol Grounds itself. There are three male figures below the statue of garfield, each five feet in height, representing the various stages of his life, a scholar, a soldier and a statesman. Anyway, ive gone on long enough. Last week the questions were far better than the talk, so i would be glad to entertain some questions. [ applause ] yes, sir. When the president was dying, who was running the country . Oh, okay. During the 80 days when the president was dying, who was running the country day to day . That is such an excellent question, and youre not going to believe the answer. No one. It was the summer. In the summer in washington, everyone left. So there was really no one around. There was some question. Blaine said, should we name Chester Arthur to be acting president . And they all felt this was a bad idea, and so they didnt. And arthur stayed in new york. So, basically, things just sort of continued. No one was really running the country. And we really didnt deal with the incapacity of the president until the 22nd amendment. Woodrow wilson incapacitated towards the last year of his life and mrs. Wilson is almost a surrogate president. Almost no one was running the country. Its an excellent question that doesnt have a really good answer. Diana . A couple things. Why wasnt he taken to a hospital . And also, what is the story about Chester Arthur . I mean, what were his credentials . Where did he go to college, and why did he wow. Okay, the answer to the first is dr. Bliss did not want him to go to a hospital. Bliss felt that he would get better care in the white house, and also he was fearful that if he was in the hospital, he, bliss, would lose control of the case. And so he felt what better than to make the white house a hospital with one patient with all these helpers around . So bliss was the one who turned down the idea of a hospital. Theres not much that a hospital in those days could have done that they couldnt do for him in the white house, anyway. If they needed something from the hospitals, they would bring it over. In terms of Chester Arthur, i honestly dont know what his credentials were. He had never run for Political Office before. The only job that i know he had was the port collector of new york which was a corrupt position which he got because ross conkling appointed him to that and he was fired because of corruption. So he had no real background. Thats why when he became president and did a relatively good job, everyone, including Chester Arthur, was surprised. Yes . I spoke to you a little bit last time. Im an Infectious Disease specialist i thought you werent going to make it today. Yeah, well, we changed our plans to come. Anyhow, so i can comment a little bit on the premise. I agree pretty much with what you said about if they left him alone, certainly his chances would have improved significantly. Still, you got to remember the bullet traveling at relatively low speed would not necessarily create the amount of heat to create sterile conditions, and there still might have been a chance without antibiotics he could have have died from an infection. But certainly he was doomed from the time bliss stuck his finger in there. If you read some of the descriptions, he had abscesses in his carotid glands, meaning well away from where the bullet was, so he was doomed. Ill point out in 1886, George Lister came to this country and did a series of lectures where he said he was treated very politely, but basically the response was, thank you, dr. Lister. Very interesting, go back to europe. It took a while. In europe, yes. Here it took a while for American Physicians to adopt listerian methods. Im also a civil war reenactor so i played dr. Lister at ford. Well, in my defense, at the time of the civil war, this predated all his bad stuff. The reason i portrayed him was because he was also the Commanding Officer of Armory Square hospital, which is where charles leo, the first doctor to take care of lincoln, served under dr. Bliss. Leo was 23, so i couldnt portray him. Thank you. A very good presentation. Im so delighted you came back. I was just surprised and delighted. Yes, sir, and then yes, sir, in the front. Good evening. I just have a couple facts. You know that out of four president s, lincoln, mckinley and kennedy were shot on a friday. Did you know that . Yeah, things like that, okay. Garfield and reagan were shot about 100 years apart and both guys that shot him were mentally ill. They kept guiteau at st. Elizabeths rather than a prison. Which is also where they kept hinckley. Theres so many of these coincidences. Kennedy was shot in ford, lincoln was shot in fords theater. Kennedys secretary was named mrs. Lincoln and yeah. And both kennedy and lyndon were replaced by Vice President s named johnson. Im sorry . They died ten years after kennedy. Almost ten years to the day, exactly, yeah. Yes, sir, here in the front. I have a short question. Did he have a chief of staff . Did he have any president ial advisers . Not the way we know it today. He had a secretary, mr. Brown, who was his surrogate son and who married his daughter. But they had much smaller staff. They relied on their cabinet a lot more. Today president s dont rely on their cabinets as much. Im trying to think of when obama had a Cabinet Meeting where all the cabinet members come together. They did that all the time, so his staff was more the cabinet than there was no National Security council, there was no domestic policy adviser to the president. It was much smaller and simpler. Great question. First of all, great talk, ralph. You mentioned halfrey and stalwarts. Where did halfrey come from . I dont know. Both were nicknames for two wings of the Republican Party at time. Yes, sir and yes, maam . Given the examples of garfields brilliance, how is he rated as a president or ranked, or was his term too brief . His term was too short. Every time they rank president s, the president s they ignore is William Henry harrison, who served even shorter. And garfield because they never had time to do anything. With garfield it is just this unlimited potential that is wiped out. The one were going to discuss next week, mckinley, the more people are looking at him, the better his ratings are going. People are going, wow. During the presidency of mckinley, and again, well talk about this next week, the United States moved from being just a domestic country to becoming a world an international player. So mckinleys ratings are going up tremendously. Garfield they dont even count. Claudia . Okay. Tarzan, it was good to see you. Claudia . Hi. At the very beginning of your talk, you said something that i thought was kind of interesting. Just at the beginning. Well, i was so mesmerized by that one thing. Many, many interesting things, as you know. You said that he was opposed to slavery, called it evil, i think, and that he specifically talked about education for africanamericans. And yet you said he was not an abolitionist. Do you want to help us understand that piece . He just he viewed the abolitionists as trying to end slavery through violence, and he didnt think that was the right way to go about it. But he was so opposed to slavery as soon as civil war broke out when the civil war broke out, a lot of people lincoln tried to make the case of the civil war is to preserve the union. Garfield said, no, the civil war is to end slavery. He really, in his gut, just felt it was wrong. Im so glad we had these questions. Yes, can you think of any specific ways that the countrys history would have been different afterwards if garfield had done one or even two terms . What a great question. Historians love the whatif. If you wonder what do historians do when theyre sitting around together and no one is paying attention . We play the whatif game. So thats a great question. If garfield had survived and served out his term, i think he might have been able to restructure the way reconstruction was going. It was going terribly. Grant was not good on it, hayes was worse. Hayes withdrew the troops that were protecting the africanamericans in the south. Garfield understood their plight and wanted to educate them. Could he have overcome the racism that existed, particularly in the south . Probably not. But could he have helped increase literacy . Literacy at the time among africanamericans was well above 30 . He was talking about education for them. Could he have improved literacy for them . Could he have used farming and agriculture to improve production, to improve the economy of the country . Probably. He was very interested in financial matters. Could he have helped america to become more prosperous . That was something he would have worked on. He certainly wanted to move forward with Civil Service reform. Could he have passed it or gotten it passed . I dont know, because it wasnt moving until after he died. Those were the issues he was focusing on. He certainly, looking back on him and particularly reading his inaugural address, you get the impression that he had some really good ideas and he was a legislative strategist. Its almost like Lyndon Johnson knowing how to work things through the system. He had been in congress for 18 years, he knew how it worked. He might have been able to get more done than someone like rutherford hayes, his predecessor, who antagonized everyone in congress. Great question. Yes, i was wondering im sorry. There and well get to you next. I was wondering if grant would have been considered a half breed or a tallward, and if conkling wanted grant because he was somebody that could have been elected because he would have been well known and well loved as a general of the army, or if he was someone that he could, for lack of a better word, control. You just answered your question with your last sentence. Grant was not well. Conkling felt he would be his guy. Grant did not want to run for president , conkling talked him into running for president. He felt if he became president , it would be because of him and he could be de facto president. Grant was neither stalwart or half breed, he was above it all. Grants presidency, he was not a particularly strong president. Particularly when you look at reconstruction during his period, a lot of problems when you look at corruption during this period, when people look back on corrupt presidencies, they jump out with grant and harding as the ones that lead the list there. An ill grant weakened by bad health and not doing well would not have been a strong figure elected in 1880. Conkling felt that the only reason he was pushing grant was not because it was grant, but he wanted to block blaine. And he just wanted to make sure blaine didnt get it. Yes, maam. Can you explain more about how he could be serving microphone, please. How he could be serving in the civil war and being elected to congress but he cant be there . Did that happen a lot and how did that work . The answer is, yes, it did. Not a lot but anyone can be elected to congress if you are a hey, just look down the block. Anyone can be elected to congress as long as they are 25 years of age and a resident of the state they live in and a resident of the state in the senate. You dont necessarily have to show up. Today they count votes and see what your percentages of voting, but just because you get elected doesnt necessarily mean you have to show up. Obviously, if you dont show up enough, constituents will not reelect you, but certainly since he was a significant general in the civil war, everyone understood he was not physically there. [ applause ] i will hang out. Some of you are wanting to go and find out whats happening in the hockey game, so next week is mckinley, another set of really fascinating stories. We can nights this month on American History tv, were featuring the contenders. Candidates that lost the election but have a lasting impact. Tonight, we feature William Jennings bryan. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern and enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. I honestly will tell you, i dont think when the dust settles in this election, its going to be whether america becomes more republican or more democrat. Whether were more liberal or more conservative, more red or more blue. I think the choice in this election is whether america remains america. As joe biden has said, from the moment he entered this race, its about the soul of our nation. Who we are, what we stand for. And maybe, most importantly, who we want to be. Watch the Vice President ial debate twine Vice President mike pence and senator kamala harris, live tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern from the university of utah in salt lake city. Watch the debates, live on cspan. Listen live on the cspan radio app, and go to cspan. Org debates for live or on demand streaming of cspans debate coverage. Theres also a link to each debate question and answer. See social media feeds on debate happenings and reaction. And watch our video from the cspan video library