Harriet blaine beal donated the house and grounds to the state of maine for the purpose of a governors home. Sadly Harriet Blaine beal had lost her son, Walker Blaine beal, in world war i and he had actually owned the house and then upon his death the house reverted back to her and she, recognizing it probably wasnt going to go on in the family and negotiation that recognizing the need that maine had and the close proximity of the blaine house to our statehouse across the street she donated the house for the purpose of the governors home. This is the state reception room. When the house was built in 1833 this was two rooms and then when the blaines acquired the house in 1862, in 69 and again in 1872 they made some major changes to the house which included opening up both these two rooms into one big reception room. This really reflects the fact that in the blaine period of ownership from 1862 into the early 1900s that there was a lot of entertaining that went on in the house related to blaines role as a leader of the Republican Party, both in maine and in the nation. He was a newspaper editor, editor of the Kennebec Journal. Then he went from there to being a state representative in 1859. He was the speaker of the state house of representatives. He moved on to become a congressman in 1863. That lasted until the mid1870s when he became a senator. James g. Blaine tried three times to run for president. In 1876 it was the first time and thats when he really had the most momentum. He was very much focused on moving quickly from being speaker of the u. S. Helpive thes in into the presidency. He narrowly missed that nomination, it went instead to rutherford b. Hayes. Then in 1880 his name was put in nomination but he did not have quite enough support and in 1884 he was nominated and he ran against Grover Cleveland and narrowly lost in that election. This is mr. Blaines study and library and this is part of the addition to the house the blaines made in 1872 and its the room that still remains the closest to what blaine and his family would have known back in the victorian period. When the house became the home for the governors in 1920, the decision was made to preserve this room much as it was in the earlier period so its become the repository for many artifacts that relate to blaine. The first one well look at is blaines desk when he was editor of the Kennebec Journal. He came to augusta in the 1850s to be a newspaper editor and this desk was made especially for him at the time and when he left the newspaper to go on for his political career the desk stayed there and in recent years the Kennebec Journal which is still being published everyday, its our oldest continuous newspaper in maine, they kindly gave the desk to the blaine house so it can be viewed by the public. Our second desk were looking at is a much more elaborate one. When the u. S. Capital was expanded in the late 1850s and early 1860s, thomas u. Walter, the architect for that expansion, designed these very elaborate desks and chairs for the senators. And in the 1870s and 80s as senators would use these and then retire, they would be able to take them with them and so blaine took this as a memento and brought it back to his home here in augusta, theres a particularly interesting feature here and this is this little feature that opens up on the desk and this card is very precious in that it was written for blaine by Abraham Lincoln. Richmond, the capital of the confederacy, was open to be able to be visited. It had recently fallen and so lincoln wrote this authorization. Allow the bearer, honorable mr. Blaine, to pass from city point that was in virginia to richmond and return, a. Lincoln, april 7, 1865. Two days later general lee surrenders to general grant at appomattox and within a few days, april 14, lincoln is assassinated. This is a very historic photo that reflects the fact that in the summer of 1889 mr. And bls blaine, shown in the photograph, mrs. Blaine in the white dress, james g. Blaine to the right, that they invited the president of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, to spend several days with them at their summer home in bar harbor. One of the reasons, of course, for this president ial trip to maine was the fact that james g. Blaine at that time was serving in Benjamin Harrisons cabinet. Blaine had been u. S. Secretary of state under garfield and briefly under president arthur but then in 1889 Benjamin Harrison appointed him secretary of state and he hold that position through most of the harrison administration. Where did blaine get most of his money from . Well, theres a lot of discussion about that and his political detractors would have said that it was illgotten in some ways, that was one of the issues that he ran into when he was trying to get the nomination in 1876 at just at the time that he was vying for that nomination issues came up about whether he had illgotten gains, so to speak, to simplify it. And thats one of the issues that made it difficult for him to obtain the nomination in 1876. But by the early 1880s, it was very clear that one of his major sources of income was the fact that he had written an extremely popular twovolume memoir called 20 years in congress. It was a bestseller of its time. It sold tens of thousands of copies and it netted him a great deal of money. Were now in the billiard room which is one of the rooms that was built as part of the addition the blaines made to the house in 1872. There were christmas cards of the previous first families. The first family were the millicans and this was a large family. Carl e. Millican and his wife were shown with his wife along with their large family. There had been 21 families who have called the blaine house their home, from the millicannes in 1920 currently to Governor Paul Lepage and his wife first Lady Ann Lepage beginning in 2011. Today when we think of james g. Blaine in maine i think we think primarily of the blaine house. Maines governor ship and the state of maine as a whole. It is a well known house in the state and thus we equate of the name of blaine with the governors mansion, keeping the name alive in the public today. On saturday, cspan looking at police relations. Well show you of the memorial servi servi service where the Police Killed in dallas and washington dcs chief describing her policing. Here is the preview. One or two small things that change the tone of an encounter with the Police Officer and sometimes it is the tone of the Police Officer, sometimes it is the way you Say Something or how you Say Something or the way your body language when you approach and the circumstances at the time. Once that tension starts, it tends to not stop and so i think the important thing for us, Police Officers to remember is that be very conscious of the way you approach people and the way you speak to people. Most people get defensive if they are feeling like you are being offensive. Being respectful and encounter and request if it is not a crisis or a dangerous situation request verses demand, those things change the dynamic a little bit. Thats kind of what we find educate of our Police Officers and the importance of encounter. You dont have Authority Just because we wear the uniform. We just dont. The uniform represents fear or hope and safety. You decide. The uniform does not decide for you. Watch spanish spotlight on police and Race Relations saturday on csspan. James garfield his life and death. Up next, ralph numberger. This event is about two hours. Today of the four president ial assassination, the one that i found the most interesting and fascinating is the one that we are going to discuss tonight, James Garfield. For quite a number of reasons, first of all, garfield is one of the most intelligent president we ever had. Hes up there in the top half dozen. When we go through his life, by the end of it or the middle of it, you are going start laughing because you are just going to say no, that cannot be. He cannot be that good in that field, it is just not possible. Well find something else. And, you are going to nah, hes just incredibly bright and the hope for his presidency was enormous. And so we are 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. It is not like you give president s iq test. It is a lot easier with things to measure, tall and short, we all know that madison was our shortest president and lincoln was our tallest president. I dont know how you know whos the most intelligent. Certainly the two adams is jefferson, madison. Lincoln and garfield is right up there. So one of the reasons thatwhy h so exciting is of who he was and how he could have changed america. Last week when we discuss 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 and even today in education and health care and so many areas, would africanamericans suffered over hundred of years had lincoln reconstruct it instead of andrew johnson. So one of the reasons today is so interesting is the brilliance of garfield. The second is, the other name character is charles gintoew ws mentally ill. They told his father that he needs to be intuitionalized. Hes not and the father agreed. The father says i cannot afford him so they did not institutionalize him. 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 didnt do that week, my failure. When he asked that, i thought it was a good idea and obviously, when you prepare talks like this, i use lots and lots of sources, secondary sources and books and primary sources. A lot of the primary sources are available on the internet so you can read the letters of garfield and the diaries and so forth. It is quite easy to get primary sources now. If i have to recommend one book, i will do that for garfield with kennedy. In the case of garfield, a book called destiny of the republic it is absolute it is a wonderful read. Shes an excellent writer. If i were to read just one book on this topic, it would be this. There is no assignment and a couple of members of my book club here today, we are not going to discuss it but it would be the one book to take a look at. You dont often talk about garfield. People dont. I remember a conversation that i had in 1988. I know exactly the year with the congressman who was running for president. And, i knew dick quite well, we were good friends. I asked him, do you know the last member of tl house whos elected from the house to be preside president. And he said no. Well, let me give you a hint. Do you know whos the only member of the house whos elected straight from the house to be president . And he still said no. And i said, garfield, thand he said they shot him. Well, you are running for the job, i am not. But, garfield as well see in a brief period was president elect, senator elect from ohio and city congressman all at the same time. Fascinating guy. At the time he was elected, he was the youngest president that we had in American History till that date. Only two president s in our history died both for sad reasons. He was the only house member and i am trying to think on the democratic side this time, no one from the house is running and on the republican side, no one either that i am aware of. It is not a jump stone or a steppingstone usually for the president. Occasionally, it happens that a house member tries to run for president but not that often and even senators. In the 20th century, only two senators went straight from the senate to the white house. Obviously, obama did and this time cruz, rubio and rand paul so the three senators tried to move for 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 presidency becoming president. Jefferson and bush senior. Anyway, onto garfield, he was born in 1831, died the year he was elected to be president in 1881. We should put him up there. He served nine consecutive terms in the house. His presidency lasted only 200 days. He was shot on july 2nd and he died in september. He lingered. 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 was a recreation of his house in ohio. His family were so poor that they could not afford to put down a log floor so it was a dirt log cabin. His father abram died leaving his mother to raise the children on his own so single mom and no money. His family was so poor, he did not have his first pair of shoes until he was 4yearold. Later on people admire from how he rose from total poverty to becoming president of the United States. He tonight romantizise this at all. Again, i will keep on stressing that, to get her son in the white house. She ultimately moves into the white house with him. She later claims and she thought, she claims to have been the first president s mother to move in the white house to cata care of her kid. A remarkable woman from herself. She was proud that she did not exce accepted from anyone. From her, he gave her a sense of love of learning and education. That defines his life. More than anything else, schooling and education for himself and then when he was president for the country is a key to understanding him. When his brother, his older brother, tomas was 11, he left home to work on other peoples farms to help raise money and he would send the money back or give the money back to mom. When james turn, he said it is time for me to do the same thing. Tomas leaves home at 11 to work on farms and mom said no, she realized something very special about this kid. You are staying in school and well support you. You need to stay in school. Thats the key of his life. It shapes his mind and attitude and creates opportunities for him that otherwise never would have existed. Garfield parents were both members of the church of christ. He was never particularly religious growing up. About age 19, he decided to go to church and his speaking skills were so good. On his first day of church, he asked the pastor, would you like to say a few words, he was so remarkable that they said you need to go travel around the churches and give sermons. People who heard him preach if he decided to make his career in this, he would have been one of the lead clergyman. If he got in the church, he would have been one of the best in the country. In his statement, he said, i resign the highest office in the land to become the president of the United States. Garfield and at age 16, his life almost took a major change. He decided enough with school, i want to go and i want to have a life on the sea. It was interesting because he could not swim. I wonder why he did this. He was living hundreds of miles away from the ocean. The closest he could find was to get work on the canal and the eerie canal. At age 16, he drops out of school and mom is devastated. He later said i broke my mothers heart as she fears this would end her high hopes for me. Unfortunately, two days after he was on the canal boat, he could not swim, all of a sudden, he falls off the boat. And, he cannot swim and so hes going under and he grabs a rope. He yanks, hes able to pull himself up on the boat. He noticed that the rope was not attached to anything. But, it got caught in a crack in the wood of the boat and saved his life. He was somehow able to pull himself up on this. He said i did not believe god paid attention to me but he saved me from my mother of Something Better than this canal. So he went home. Hes a changed man. I dont know why this happens but god sent me a signal. He got really sick, he caught malaria. She was so sick, after ten days the fever broke, he thought he was okay. For two months no one knew hes going to survive. When he finally survived and recovered his health, mom and brother tomas went to him, tomas has saved 17 of money he had not given for the family and they said we are 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 it is time to go to college. He went to western reserve. He could not afford tuition. He took a job as the janitor. He would get up at 4 00 or 5 00 in the morning and would chop woods and 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. Then he would join them in class and go and work in the kitchen to help them with lunch. Then afterwards he would clean the school and 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. In his first year, he learned and became fluent in greek and latin. Again, it is every time you go through this you think this is amazing and how is this possible. If you think it is impressive that hes fluent in latin and greek in one year, his teachers said his best topic was in math. He developed a trapezoid proof of the pythagorean theorem. Despite his ability of math and language, his interest was science. Again, hes taking a full course load as a student and hes teaching. Hes an assistant professor. In his second year, hes teaching latin and one of his students was randolph, as you can see this is his wedding b picture, so we are jumping ahead. She was the professor, she was the student. He was a big shy kid and he was able to learn anything that came his way. They had virtually opposite personalities. He was this big hearted cheerful out going guy and he would not shake hands with people. He would give people bear hugs. People laugh with hed with him was great company. People loved to be around him. She on the other hand was shy and soft spoken and private. Until her diary she wrote that she was fearful she would be considered cold and heart less. Their court ship was awkward to put it mildly. Even though