The Highest Calling, page 14
DR: When he dies, he’s given enormous honors by the federal government.
RC: He’s buried in New York, in Grant’s Tomb. Do you know where that joke comes from?
DR: Groucho Marx.
RC: Groucho Marx, that’s right. For those of you who don’t know the story, Groucho, in the 1950s, had the quiz show You Bet Your Life. The contestants would come out and Groucho would mercilessly ridicule them. But even Groucho began to feel sorry for them, that so few of them knew a single answer. So he decided to ask each a question that everyone would know the answer to, and that question was, who’s buried in Grant’s tomb? And to Groucho’s astonishment, half the contestants got it wrong.
Grant’s Tomb, for those of you who visit it, is gigantic. It’s the largest mausoleum in North America. And if you want to see the regard in which Ulysses S. Grant was held in in the nineteenth century, go to Grant’s Tomb. It’s really magnificent.
6 CANDICE MILLARD
on James A. Garfield
(1831–1881; president from January 1881 to September 1881)
One of the most talented individuals to have ever been elected president, James Garfield, is one of the least known, in no small part because he served such a short time. Four months into his administration, which began in 1881, Garfield was shot by a deranged office seeker, Charles Guiteau. Sadly, Garfield died not so much because of the bullet that remained in his abdomen for several months but because a not very competent physician, Willard Bliss, appointed himself as the doctor in charge of the recovery and kept other doctors away from Garfield. The concept of maintaining sanitary medical conditions was not widely accepted at the time, and as a result Dr. Bliss and others often used their bare fingers to probe for the bullet that was lodged in Garfield’s abdomen. The inevitable result was infections throughout Garfield’s body, and he died three months after being shot.
Interestingly, in the effort to locate the bullet, in an era where X-rays and CT scans did not exist, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, developed a metal-detecting device that could have located the bullet, and he did use it on Garfield. But because the doctor thought the bullet was on Garfield’s right side, Bell was not allowed to use his device on the left side (where the eventual autopsy showed the bullet was lodged). Had Bell been able to help find the actual bullet, and had it been removed in a safe and sanitary way, it is possible Garfield could have lived. Sadly, he was succeeded by his vice president, Chester Arthur, a former machine politician who had been a New York customs official and was not someone widely admired for his intellect or honesty.
Because Garfield did not serve very long, it is difficult to say he was a consequential president. But his potential certainly seemed high. He had been born into poverty but came to be an excellent student and ultimately a college president, a distinguished scholar, a Civil War general and hero, a ten-term member of Congress, and was about to become a senator when he was nominated for president against his wishes. Garfield had actually nominated another senator from Ohio, John Sherman, to be the Republican nominee, but the convention eventually decided, on the 36th ballot, that Garfield was the best candidate. In the tradition of those days, he did not campaign in the general election. He stayed home in Ohio and managed to beat another former Civil War general, Winfield Scott Hancock, closely (via the popular vote) and decisively (via the Electoral College).
Garfield’s assassin believed that he was responsible for Garfield’s election, having made a halting and largely ignored speech for him in the campaign. Guiteau’s efforts to get Garfield and his secretary of state to appoint him as a consul in Paris were never taken seriously, and Guiteau felt he was being treated shabbily and sought to avenge this insult. So he positioned himself at a train station on what is now the Mall in Washington, knowing that Garfield was scheduled to take a train on that particular day. Guiteau ultimately was tried and sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging about one year after the assassination occurred.
This unfortunate story has been recounted in Destiny of the Republic, written by Candice Millard, a former writer for National Geographic and a talented author of histories. I had a chance to interview her about the book at the New-York Historical Society on April 11, 2023.
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DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN (DM): Let’s talk about James Garfield, the subject of your book Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President. Garfield was only president for a few months, so not that distinguished and long a record, but it’s a very interesting story about how he became president and what happened in the couple of months that he was president. Let’s go back to the beginning. Who was James Garfield? Where was he from?
CANDICE MILLARD (CM): James Garfield was from Ohio. He was our last president born in a log cabin. He was incredibly poor. His father died when he was just two years old. He didn’t have shoes until he was four. But his mother and his older brother realized that he was special, that he was absolutely brilliant. And they saved and saved. They saved $17 to be able to send him to college. He went to what’s now known as Hiram University in Ohio.
But he still needed to help pay for his tuition. He was a janitor and a carpenter his first year to help pay his tuition. But then, by his second year, he was so brilliant—when he was still a sophomore in college, still a student—they made him a professor of literature, mathematics, and ancient languages. By the time he was 26, he was a university president. He was an incredible classicist. He knew the entire Aeneid by heart in Latin. And while he was in Congress, he wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem. If you know any other congressman who can do that, I would love to know.
DR: He also graduated from Williams College?
CM: He did. He went to Williams after Hiram.
DR: He was a very distinguished person. How did he get into politics? Did he always want to be in politics?
CM: He was incredibly charismatic and a talented speaker, and that became clear early on. He was a strong abolitionist. He really wanted to fight in the Civil War, and he did. He obviously fought for the Union, and was a real hero in that war.
He was encouraged to go into politics. He never campaigned for himself. He said, “If people want me, these are my values, these are my interests, and then they can vote for me or not.”
DR: In the Civil War, he rose up to be a general because he was so good at what he was doing. How did he learn military tactics, and how did he become so accomplished as a military leader?
CM: It was reading. That really defined his life, studying. He was a scholar. And so he studied military tactics and military strategy, and he was very good at it. But then, while in the military, he won a seat in Congress and Lincoln asked him to come to Washington and take that seat and serve, because he needed him.
DR: He’s in Congress. How does he rise up? Is he the chairman of any committees that do anything important?
CM: One of the things he cared a lot about was hard money. That was important to him. Also education. And he was instrumental in bringing about Black suffrage. He gave a speech on the floor of Congress on that subject which would tear your heart out. It was incredibly moving and powerful.
DR: Let’s set the context. Lincoln is assassinated. Andrew Johnson becomes president, is impeached but not convicted, doesn’t run for reelection. General Grant runs and is elected for eight years. He doesn’t run for a third term. The next president elected is Rutherford B. Hayes. He doesn’t run for reelection because he promised to run for only one term, and he nobly decided to honor his promise. This is in 1880, and there are several people who want to be the nominee of the Republican Party. Who are those people?
CM: Ulysses S. Grant is hoping for a third term. Everyone assumes that he’s going to win. John Sherman, from Ohio, is also hoping he will get the nomination. He’s William Tecumseh Sherman’s brother and he’s secretary of the Treasury. He’s worried about Grant, but he’s also worried about Garfield. Garfield is not running but everybody is fascinated with him and they want him to run, and there has been a lot of murmuring. Sherman thinks, “The best way to make him not be a threat to me is to ask him to give my nominating address at the convention.”
DR: He’s asked to go ahead and make the nominating speech. He wants to do that?
CM: He does not want to but he feels like he can’t say no.
DR: The convention is held in Chicago in 1880. On the first ballot, what happens?
CM: What happens first is they give these nominating addresses and there’s this man named Roscoe Conkling, who is a famous, powerful senior senator from New York. He wants Grant to win, because he’s going to be the man behind the power and he’s going to be running things.
He’s a flamboyant guy. He has a great spit curl, and he would wear these fancy coats, and he would write with lavender ink. He gives a stirring speech and the whole crowd is going crazy. It’s 15,000 people. Garfield has to go up next to give the nominating speech for Sherman, and he’s obviously very different—he’s quiet, wise. He stands up and he starts speaking, and most of it is extemporaneous, because he took ideas from the other speeches. And everyone is mesmerized or fascinated. At one point, he says, “Gentlemen, I ask you, what do we want?” And someone in the crowd shouts, “We want Garfield.”
Everybody starts going crazy, and he’s trying to get them to settle down and listen to him. He finishes his speech and he sits down, and they start the ballots. Each state stands up. James Blaine was also running, the magnetic man from Maine. These ballots are coming in, and John Sherman is somewhere else, nervously following the results coming in by telegraph.
Then at one point someone stands up and says, “We give our vote to Garfield.” And Garfield stands up and he says, “I’m not a candidate. I refuse it.” They shout him down. He thinks, “Well, it’s just one vote.”
But they don’t have anybody who’s won it, so they do another round. There are a few more votes for Garfield, and a few more. Other people change their vote and send it to Garfield, and more and more and more. He’s trying to stop it but he can’t, and it becomes this flood of votes. He wasn’t even a candidate, didn’t want to be a candidate, and he finds himself the Republican nominee for president of the United States.
DR: They had 36 ballots or something?
CM: 36 ballots. The most ballots ever at that point.
DR: He honestly didn’t want to be the nominee, but he is the nominee. In those days, when you’re the nominee of the party, do you go campaign or just sit on your porch?
CM: No, they told him, “Just sit cross-legged and look wise.” He was very happy to go back to his farm in Ohio, where his children and his wife were. But people would come to him. He spoke German, and he actually gave the first presidential campaign speech in a foreign language on his front porch.
DR: In the election, who was his main opponent?
CM: A man named Winfield Scott Hancock.
DR: Who was a military person?
CM: Yes.
DR: What did the election results show?
CM: It was very, very close. They didn’t find out until the wee hours of the morning, but Garfield ended up winning. It’s interesting, his reaction to it. He said he felt this overwhelming sense of sorrow because he understood all that he was going to lose, and he understood all the pressure that he would now be under.
DR: Did Sherman ever think that maybe Garfield really wanted it?
CM: He didn’t. Garfield said, “Make sure Sherman knows that I don’t want this and that my vote is going to go to him.” But Sherman at some point said, “It’s okay, he should have it. He should be the nominee.”
DR: Sherman is the brother of the famous Civil War general who went through Georgia, and he’s also the author of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which for lawyers is a big deal. So Sherman is pacified. He’s not going to be the nominee of the party. Garfield gets elected. Between the election in November and inauguration in March, he puts together a distinguished cabinet?
CM: It’s a pretty distinguished cabinet. The only problem is Roscoe Conkling, whom I was talking about earlier. Conkling is furious that Grant didn’t win, and he’s apoplectic at the thought that he can’t control Garfield. So he thinks, “What I need to do is start picking off Garfield’s nominees.” When Garfield would announce that he’s going to nominate somebody to his cabinet, Conkling would make them come to his apartment, which was nicknamed the Morgue, and threaten them, scare them. Then they would sell Garfield out. Garfield had already had his vice president forced on him. There was a division in the Republican Party between the “stalwarts” and the “half-breeds.” The stalwarts were all for controlling the government and the half-breeds were for reform.
Conkling had this man named Chester Arthur, who was kind of his puppet. Arthur was one of these guys who liked the good life. He liked to show up for work around noon, he liked fine wine, he liked nice dinner parties. He moved his birth date back a year so he’d appear more youthful. And the only job he ever had was as the collector of the New York Customs House, which Conkling had given him through Grant. The party says to Garfield, “We need Conkling’s power to help us get you elected, so you have to take Chester Arthur. He has to be your vice president.”
DR: Chester Arthur’s elected vice president. Garfield comes to Washington. He’s married and has children?
CM: Garfield is married to Lucretia. Yes, he has children. He’s lost a couple to illness, sadly.
DR: He comes to Washington, is sworn in. What does he want to do right away? Does he have reforms he wants to do?
CM: He has a lot of things that he had planned. Again, he’s been forced into this position, but he thinks, “If I have to do it, then I’m going to use it for good.” Again, education is important to him, and foreign issues are important, and equality for Black citizens.
DR: Let’s go to what happens at the assassination attempt. Can you explain who the assailant is and why he thinks he’s owed a job and why Garfield didn’t want to give him the job?
CM: Charles Guiteau was Garfield’s opposite in every way. He had had a difficult childhood, and he had thrown himself into every opportunity he could, but would fail at every opportunity. He was a failed lawyer. He was a failed journalist. He had joined a free-love commune and he had failed even there. The women nicknamed him Charles Get-out.
But he believed that he was meant for greatness. One night, just before the presidential election, he’s on a steamship on Long Island Sound. He’s on the deck thinking about what great things he’s going to do in his life. The steamship crashes into another steamship and dozens of people die. Guiteau is saved, but he believes that it’s not just accidental, that God has chosen to save him for a great purpose. So when Garfield gets the nomination, Guiteau thinks, “I’m going to personally make sure that Garfield is elected president. And then, to thank me, he’s going to make me the ambassador to France.”
DR: What does Guiteau do for Garfield? Does he make speeches for him?
CM: He wrote a speech that was originally called “Grant versus Hancock” because he thought Grant was going to be the nominee. Then he just crossed out “Grant” and wrote “Garfield versus Hancock.” He begged them and begged them during the campaign to let him give a speech. They finally say, “Okay, go ahead.” He goes onstage and mumbles through a little bit and then runs off. But then, when Garfield is elected, Guiteau said to the secretary of state, “You’re welcome. Now make me ambassador to France.”
DR: What did the secretary of state say?
CM:. “No, absolutely not.” But Guiteau doesn’t give up. He keeps going to the secretary of state’s office. He keeps going to the White House. You have to remember this is the height of the spoils system. Garfield, the president of the United States, is expected to meet with office seekers personally, people who want things like “Can you put me in charge of this post office?” every day from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Guiteau is all for the spoils system and he thinks, “I asked first, so I’m first in line. If I just don’t give up, if I just keep going every day, I’m going to wear them down.” He’s clutching the speech that he wrote, to prove that he made Garfield president.
DR: Did he ever meet with Garfield himself?
CM: He did. This is 16 years after Lincoln’s been assassinated and there’s still no protection for the president of the United States. Garfield has an aging police officer and his 23-year-old personal secretary. One day Guiteau just walks into the president’s office while Garfield is in there.
DR: He just walks in?
CM: He just walks in and hands him his speech. Garfield says, “Okay, thank you. I’ll consider it.” But then Guiteau starts to stalk the president.
DR: He thinks about maybe killing him, or he’s just stalking him to put pressure on to get the job?
CM: He’s frustrated. Finally the secretary of state tells him, “You need to stop. This is not going to happen.” Guiteau goes home—he’s living in a boardinghouse—and he has what he believes is a divine inspiration that God wants him to kill the president. He says, “It’s nothing personal. It’s just what God wants to happen.”
He sits outside the White House on a bench for days, waiting for the president to come out. He follows him to church, where he thinks about killing him. One night he is sitting across from the White House and Garfield walks out. Garfield, again, has no protection at all. He walks down the street to his secretary of state’s house and then the two men walk through the streets of Washington. Guiteau is following them the entire way holding a loaded gun.
