We will hear about the company hated set of circumstances that ended in garfields death. This event from the Smithsonian Associates is about two hours. Professor nurnberger of the four u. S. President assassinations, the one i find fascinating and interesting is the one we will discuss tonight James Garfield. For quite a number of reasons. First of all, garfield is one of the most intelligent president s weve ever had. By the end of it or the middle of it, you will start laughing because you will just say, that cannot be. He cannot be that good in that field, it is just not possible. You will find Something Else and say, no. He did he is just incredibly bright. The hope for his presidency was in or miss. We 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 do not know how you test Something Like that. It is not as if you give president s iq test. It is a lot easier with things that are easy to measure. We all know madison was our shortest and lincoln was our tallest president. That is easy. I do not know how you know who the most intelligent is. The two adams, jefferson, madison, lincoln, and garfield is right up there. One of the reasons it is so exciting is because of who he was and how he could have changed america. Last week, when we discussed lincoln, we were discussing, had lincoln not been shot, how would america be different . With the south be so far behind the rest of the country, even today, and education and health care and so many other areas and would africanamericans have suffered over 100 years as they did had lincoln been in charge of construction a congress who wanted to take revenge on the south and did not really care about the africanamericans. One of the reasons today so interesting is the brilliance of garfield. The second is, the other main character in our stereo our story, it shows the failure of our Mental Health treatment in this country then and today. There is no doubt in my mind that charles was mentally ill. It was not treated properly then, even though they knew, as we will discuss. They told his father he needs to be institutionalized and he is nuts. The father agreed, but then they said, you know putting people in, you have to pay and the father said, i cannot afford it, so they did not institutionalize it. The contrast between garfield and his assassin is so astounding. Last week, when we were discussing lincoln, after the talk, a gentleman came up to me and asked me to recommend a book at each of the subsequent talks. I did not do that last week. My failure. So when he said that, i thought it was a very good idea. Obviously, when you prepare talks like this, i use a lot of sources. Secondary sources, books, and primary sources, and a lot of those primary sources are available on the internet. You can read the letters of garfield and the diaries and so forth. It is quite easy to get primary sources now. I use 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 the murder of a president , it is a wonderful read. Ok, good. She is an excellent writer. If i were to read just one book on this topic, it would be this. Obviously, i use it, but i use a lot of other its as well. But that would be the one book, again, there is no book exam after this, there is no assignment and a couple of members of my book club are here today and we will not discuss it, but it would be the one book to take a look at. You do not often talk about garfield, or people dont get i remember a conversation i had in 1990 1988. I know exactly the year. Then congressman was running for president. I knew him quite well, we were good friends. 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 . He said, no. 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 . He still said no. I said, garfield. He said, they shot him. I said, you are running for the job and i am not. But garfield, as we will see, in a brief time, was president elect from ohio, and city congressmen all at the same time. Fascinating, fascinating guy. At the time he was elected president , he was by far the youngest president we had in American History to that date and only two american president s in our history died before reaching the age of 50. Kennedy and garfield. Obviously both for sad reasons. But he is the only house member to time trying to think quickly. On the democratic side, in this time, no one from the house is running in on the republican side, no one either. That i am aware of. It is not a stepping stone, usually, for the presidency. It occasionally happens that a house member tries to run for president , but not that often. Even senators. In the 20th century come only two senators when straight to the white house. Obviously, obama did, and this time ted cruz come marco rubio and rand paul. So three center senators are trying to move from the senate but not often from the house. Vice president s, not that many either. Only three i can think of when straight from the vice presidency to becoming president. Jefferson, van buren, and bush senior. Governors, more often. Onto garfield. Garfield was born in 1831 and died the year he was elected to be president in 1881. He served nine consecutive terms in the house and his presidency lasted only 200 days. He was inaugurated in march. He was shot july 2. He died in september. He lingered, and we will talk a little bit about his medical care and what happened to him. James garfield was the youngest of five children, worn in absolute, extreme poverty. This is a recreation of his house in a while. In ohio. His family lived in a log cabin and were so poor, they cannot afford to put down a log floor. His father died when garfield was 18 months old leaving his mother to raise five children on her own. Single mom with five kids and no money. The family was so poor, he did not have his first pair of shoes until he after he was four years old. Later on, when people admired how he rose from total poverty to becoming president of the United States, he did not romanticize it at all. He said, let us never praise poverty, especially as a means of raising children. But you do need to really have a sense of off awe about his mother to be able to pull this off, to go from such poverty and i will keep stressing that, to getting her son in the white house. Shields merely moved into the white house with him. She later claimed she thought come and im not sure if she was right or wrong, she claimed to have been the first president s mother to move into the white house and take care of the kids. A remarkable woman herself, she was fiercely proud that she never accepted aid from anyone. They were tarred, and from her he gave a love of learning, the education. It defines his life and more than everything else, schooling and education for himself, and when he is president for the country, it is a key to understanding him. When his older brother, thomas was 11, thomas left home to work on other peoples farms to help raise money. He would give the money back to mom. When james turned 11, he said, it is time for me to do the same. If thomas leaves home at 11 00 i will. The mom said no. She realized there was something very special about this kid and she said, you are staying in school and we will support you. You need to stay in school. It shapes his minded attitudes and creates opportunities for him that otherwise never would have existed. Garfieldss parents were members of the church of crisis. He was never particularly religious growing up. At about age 19, he decided to go to church. Speaking skills were so good, on his first day in church, the pastor said, would you like to say a few words, and he was so remarkable that they said, you need to go and travel around to other churches and give sermons. People who heard him preach said if he decided to make his career in the ministry, he would have been one of the leading clergymen in the in america. We will find this on everything he does. If he had gone to the church, he would have been the best in the country. He remains an elder in the church and resigns when he becomes president. In his statement, he said, i resigned the highest office in the land to become president of the nice dates. Garfield at age 16, his life almost took a major change. All of a sudden, he decided, enough with school. I want to go have a life on seaon sea he. Was living hundreds of miles away from the ocean. A close as he could find was to get work on the ohio and. Canal. At age 16, he drops out of school in the mom is totally devastated. He later said, i broke my mothers heart as she feel fears this will end her high hopes for me. He takes a job working on a boat. Unfortunately, a few days after he was on the boat, he could not swim. All the son, he falls off the boat and he cannot swim. He is going under and he grabs a rope and he yanks on the rope and he is able to pull himself up on the boat and then he noticed the rope was not attached to anything. It got caught in a crack in the wood on the boat and saved his life. 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 you save me for something greater and better than canal and clear he went home and said, enough of this. He was a totally changed young man, thinking, i do not know why this happened, but god is sending me a signal. He also got very sick and caught malaria. He was so sick, after 10 days, the fever broke and he thought it was ok and that he had a severe relapse and for two months, no one knew if he would survive. When he finally survived and finally recovered his health, mom and brother thomas went to him and they said, thomas had saved 17, so far of money had not given to the family. They said, were giving you this money on one condition you go back to school. He attended a number of local schools and when he reached age 20, he decided it is time to go on to the equivalent of college. He went to Western Region or western reserve. But he could not afford the tuition, so he took a job as the janitor. He would get up at 4 00 or 5 00 in the morning and would chop wood so the other students would have fires in their rooms. He would go and prepare breakfast for the other students, and then he would join them in klass class. Then he would help them with lunch, lower the flag at the end of the day 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. Every time you go through this, you say, this is amazing and how is this possible . If you think it is impressive he was fluent in greek and latin after one year, the teacher said his best subject was math here just to give you an idea of how good he was at math, when he was in congress coming was born for dashboard for a while, so he developed a trapezoid proof of the perfect room theorem and apparently garfieldss work in math is still taught in math programs today. Despite his ability in both math and languages, his interest with science. He studied all the latest scientific discoveries. Again, remember he is taking a full course load as a student and he is teaching as an assistant professor. In his second year, his teaching latin and one of his students as you can see, this is his wedding picture. He was 19 a professor, she was 18, a student. She would later tell her daughter he was a big shy kid with unruly hair. He was as awkward and untutored in manners and determined to learn anything and everything that came his way. They had virtually opposite personalities. He was a big hearted and cheerful, outgoing guy. He would not shake hands with people at he would give people bear hugs. People laugh with him he was great company. People love being around this extroverted, big and wonderful guy. She, on the other hand, was shy softspoken, very private paired in her diary, she wrote that she was fearful she would be considered cold and heartless. The courtship was awkward, to put it mildly. Even though he was an incredible extrovert, he could not tell her what he felt about her. And she could not talk to him. This is not a good thing if you are according. It seems first time he was able to tell her what he thought of her, it was by letter. He took a tour of Niagara Falls and he writes her a letter in which he says, please pardon the liberty i take in pointing my pen toward your name, for this evening, i have taken some of scenery, i could not take it myself. Not exactly a love letter, but it is the first time he is telling her, im thinking about you. She was even more shy and reserved and he was, so neither of them were able to tell each other that they really felt quite strongly about each other. He leaves ohio and decides to finish college at Williams College in williamstown, massachusetts. Our new congressman went to williams, 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 all my motto. When he was at williams, of course, needless to say, he was the best student there, a skilled debater and skilled writer, the editor and in two years at a shy five, he got a great start and graduated with the highest honors. Returns to reserve to teach latin and greek and become a professor, as well as other subjects here a year later, he is to be president of the school. You are going to keep laughing. He then realizes the school is deeply in debt, has no endowment, so he becomes the chief fundraiser and raises enough money so the schools able to survive as well and achieve financial viability. He also resumes his rather awkward courtship of a woman who he called both of them remain unable to tell each other what they think and so one day, she hands him her diary and says, just read this. In the diary it is full of pages about how much she loves him. Finally, november 11, 1858, the 27yearold James Garfield marries the 26yearold after an 11 year courtship. Here she is. If the courtship was difficult the beginning of the marriage was premuch worse. They had great difficulty figuring out ok, now that were living together, what do we do. As a result, it became even 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 everything else. Separation and difficulty of communicating with one another made it very difficult for them at home alone. The first child allies, the same name is jamess mother, she unfortunately died at age three. They grieve separately instead of together. It is a difficult time. 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. She was a reporter for the new york tribune. They had a monthlong affair, he felt guilty, went home and confessed to his life, assuming that the marriage was now over. She forgives him and says, it is time for us to figure out how to make this thing better. From that moment, they fell passionately love each other. They decided they were going to do the best they could together with each other. After that, maybe for the first time they almost could not bear to be a part. He later wrote, we waited a long time for the love to come, but it is here to stay here if he later wrote she became the light of my life and 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. From the moment they really jumpstarted their marriage, they were a happily married couple. It took them a long time to get there, but once they were there they were really there. They ultimately wind up having evan children here they were there. Two of them, sadly, their daughter and son, passed away before either reached their fourth birthday. But five did become mature adults and we will talk about them a little bit later. The five who did who survived through adulthood did extremely well because they had great parents. Particularly after he passed away, she did a great job raising them afterwards. While he was president of western reserve, he decided, he would study law. You will keep laughing. In 1859, he studied law, and two years later, he is admitted to the ohio bar. It turns out he was an absolutely brilliant lawyer. Unfortunately for his legal career the civil war came first and then he was elected to congress, so he had put law aside. He did not actually engaged in the practice of law until right after the civil war are the first case he argues of force was in one of this in court. The Supreme Court. It was in front of the Supreme Court. A case that was still one of the key cases taught in constitutional law today, on how to deal with civilians during combat times. It is cited today as well particularly garfields argument at the time. Two things stalled his legal career. Politics and the war. He was fiercely opposed to slavery and very eagerly supportive, very passionately supported the rights of africanamericans to be equal citizens in the country. When he was relatively poor, a number of freed slaves, he put them up, and particular, one stayed with them for a while and he gave them with little money he had to try to help the slaves. He was in normal sleep upset when john brown was hanged. He said this is a dark day in the history of our country and then in his diary, in latin he writes, slavery be dammed. The good switch between latin and greek and english. From what you can pickup of this guy, it was no spreadsheet people were drawn to him and very impressed with him. In 1859, a state senator in ohio died and the Republican Party, relatively new, comes to him and said, you are for emancipation you are for the union, would you run for state senate . They said to give it a try and so of course, he wins overwhelmingly in the first attempt in Public Office and that begins with his political career. It is a remarkable story and he probably would have gone on to do very well as a lawyer and a politician and in the civil war breaks out. When it takes out when the civil war breaks out he enlists as a private and four weeks later, he is promoted as kernel. It gets better. He is one of the first to apply and is immediately assigned to stop an invasion of Eastern Kentucky by the confederates. Abraham lincoln says, i hope to have god