Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency James Garfield Assassination 20240712

Test garfield figures this out, goes up to new york and suddenly saves millions of dollars in his first week as president. Lots of appointments we dont have time to go into. The one that i think is 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 that is general lou wallace. Garfield appoints him to be the ambassador to turkey. Lou wallace wrote about the ben hur. And he tells lou wallace, im appointing you to be an ambassador to a Muslim Country so you can write another book. He gets involved with an ohio senator by the name of George Pendleton to try and draft civil supervisory form. Sadly, it only passes after garfields death. Good point for us to stop here and shift to the second character in our story. And there is nothing more different than this absolutely brilliant latin and greek scholar, president of the university, lawyer who argues ex parte militant, architecture, designs his own house, mathematician who comes up with the pythagorean theorem that gets published, et cetera, than Charles Guiteau. Charl Julius Guiteau was born in freeport, illinois, a french houganot family. Moves to new york because he wants to go to nyu. Is completely and inadequately prepared and flunks the entrance exam. Moves to ann arbor, michigan, to take remedial courses and quits after a couple of weeks deciding hes not very good at schooling, in his phrase, and joins a utopian religious sect known as the oneida community. In oneida, new york, which practices free love and sexual freedom, to put it mildly. A Group Marriage. But 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 and quits and moves to hoboken, new jersey, where he attempts to start a newspaper. This failed. So 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 that this was the most desperate and 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 cheap boarding houses and skip out just before paying the bills and finally, after a brief period of time, she left him. Because of his behavior. He then moves to ohio excuse me, 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 asked him three questions. He gets two of them right and the lawyer says, you just passed the bar. And so he becomes a lawyer, but all he his happiest moments as a lawyer is reading his business cards that say Charles Guiteau, attorney at law. His biggest accomplishment is for a brief period of time he had an office in a building that had an elevator. He argues only one case. He loses. Its thrown out. He spends most of his time as a lawyer as a bill collector which he does rather poorly. He at one point sues the New York Herald for 100,000 because they wrote an article about him saying that he had represented a client to get 350 back. He got half of that and pocketed it as his fee. And the New York Herald wrote about it and said dont use this guy as your bill collector. So he sued them, but then they threw it out. He then decides that he moves in with his sister, francis, whom he then attacks with an ax. She, in turn, tries to have him institutionalize as mentally disturbed. A doctor interviews him and says, yes, he is. He finds out hes being newell institutionalized and runs away. He dice hes going to devote the rest of his life to god and becomes interested in theology. Writes a book called the truth which is totally plagiarized from other peoples writing, literally word for word. But his biggest conclusion in his book is that christ has already had his second coming. He travels around the country jumping off trains before they collect his ticket. His father is asked to put him in institutionalized and then is found out he would have to pay for institutionizing him and says he cant afford it. An event takes place in june 11, 1880, that changes his life. He is on a ferry ride on a ship called the ss stonington. The stonington, its foggy, its a terrible night and it collides with another ship called the ss naragantha. The naragantha sinks, dozens of people lose their life. He survives. Hes convinced god has a higher plan for him and that higher plan is to get involved in politics. So he decides to write a speech to help the next president ial candidate, grant. So he writes a speech on why people should vote for grant. Then garfield gets the nomination. So 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. So about a dozen people show up to hear him and they walk out. He becomes convinced 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 was 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. I got you in as president , you owe me. I want to be the ambassador to vee enna. 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. At the time, president s met with job seekers. So somehow he goes in and he 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 its a matter of time. Hes met the president , he gives the speech, hes going to be the next ambassador. Somehow he is able to attend a reception at the white house where he spends time with mrs. Garfield and goes up to her and says, you probably dont know who i am. Im the man most responsible for the president s election as president and as a result im going to be the next ambassador to paris. He then goes and is told that to get any job, you need to have a formal application. So he goes to the white house and fills out the form. Hes told your application will be put in a file. So he is now convinced that garfield will go through the file, pick his out and name him ambassador to paris. So a few days later, he goes to the white house to find out whats happened to his application and he is told the president cannot see you today. So he figures, ahh, 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 and laughing at the square waiting to meet people. Somehow he meets Vice President Chester Arthur. He says, i got you guys elected in new york, Chester Arthur from new york being surprised and i would appreciate your help in becoming ambassador to paris and author says thats a president ial appointment, im only Vice President , 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 from the hotel says im stealing your paper. And he says dont you know who i am . Im going to be the next a. M. Ambassador to paris. Then he bumps in and goes to see secretary of state blaine and says youre secretary of state, ambassadors fall on the state department i would appreciate your help to become the next ambassador to paris. He does this so often the state Department Says he can no longer come back and finally meets blaine on the street and says whats happening and blaine says youre not going to get a job, 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 perfectly willing to come to the white house tomorrow to figure out how to get rid of this guy because hes the problem. Obviously hes not getting anywhere. He writes a letter to the president and stops on june one. But hes 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 stice he wouldnt be guilty because god specifically asked him to do this and so hes not to be blamed for this. If hes going to kill the president , he obviously needs a gun. So he borrows 15 and he goes to buy a gun. This is a photo of the gun. The smithsonian has since lost the gun. He goes to a gun shoe shop and is told he has a choice of two guns, they are both 442 webley british guns. He says hes 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 to figure out how the gun works. The first time he shoots it, he gets knocked over from the recoil because he has no idea what he is doing. Now hes decided to kill the president , so he starts following the president and stalking him. Waiting for the right opportunity. Its now time to return to the garfield. In mid may of 1881, mrs. Garfield suddenly contracts malaria and possible spinal meningitis. Her temperature at one point reaches 104. She is doing quite poorly. When her temperature subsides the doctors suggest she go to a seaside resort in new jersey in the hotel and so on june 18, garfield and mrs. Garfield take the train to go to new jersey so that she can have convalescence from her illness. Guiteau goes to the train station and decides to kill them. He sees mrs. Garfield and shes not doing well and so he doesnt want to upset her by killing her husband while shes there. So he decides not to kill him. Garfield stays up in new jersey with his wife. He has a Cabinet Meeting there. He meets with grant. Then on june 27, 1881, he comes back to washington. A few days later on july 2nd, he is invited to be the featured speaker at his alma mater, we college. In order to get up there, he needs to take the train. He goes to the train station accompanied by james blaine and two of his sons, james and harry, here is the train station. That train station is today where the west where the National Gallery of art is. My good friend, eric danker, who is one of the curators at the National Gallery told me somewhere at the National Gallery theres a plaque where garfield was shot. I havent seen it, but its somewhere in the National Gallery today. When i see eric next ill ask him where it is. Secretary of war Robert Todd Lincoln is at the train station to greet him. He was poor Robert Todd Lincoln at his fathers bedside when his father die, next to garfield when garfield is shot and with mckinley in buffalo when mckinley is shot and after mckinleys death he says i never want to see another president again. Garfield enters the waiting room. Guiteau steps forward, pulls a trigger from pointblank range and shoots garfield in the back. Garfield yells out, my god, what is this and throws up his arms. 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. So he went to the d. C. Prison to get a tour to see if this is an okay place for him to live. They wouldnt let him in. So he walked around the building a few times and figures this is okay. He gets to the train station by cab and tells the cab driver could you wait i have 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 final cord. The bullet lodges near the liver but could not be found until after the autopsy and it was found behind the pancreas in fatty tissue. Guiteau 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 policemen by the name of patrick kurney jumps on guiteau, wrestles him to the ground, and is so excited that he has just wrestled the assassin of a president he forgets to take the gun away, they dont take it away until he gets back to the police station. A crowd gathers yelling lynch him, lynch him. Guiteau shouts i am the stalwart of stalwarts. I did it, i want to be arrested, arthur is president. This leads some people to believe 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 we will talk a lot about conspiracy, there is no conspiracy here. We have one very deranged person acting alone. Guiteau thinking he had done 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 hours of sorrow have passed in this town. In less than five minutes a physician by the name of Smith Townsend who is the d. C. Health commissioner arrives at the train station. Now a quick background, by this point in history, Joseph Lister had already written extensively on the need for sanitation and the danger of sepsis caused by drugs excuse me by germs and the need not to put germs into patients. But there are many in america who did not believe this and we will come to this in a second, particularly with the doctor who is going to be one of the lead figures in our story. Dr. Bliss. Dr. Townsend comes and decides 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 havent 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 is mostly concerned, how will his wife take this news . 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 an extremely well meaning but incredibly tragic mistake. And the mistake is, he calls for his own personal physician to come and be the physician here is another picture of the assassination. Again, here is blaine standing there. Guiteau shooting garfield pretty much at point blank. A man with a great first name of doctor, dr. Doctor willard bliss was one of the attending physicians at lincolns death bed, is called by Robert Todd Lincoln to come and see what he could do. Bliss was 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. So he immediately gets there and sticks his finger into garfield to see if he can find the bullet. He cant. And 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. Then he tries to remove the probe, but he gets engaged between fragments and the end of the rib. So in order to get the probe out, he has to press down on the president s ribs so that the ribs would lift so he can pull the probe out thereby causing a cavity to develop inside the president. He then sticks his finger back into the president to see if now he could find the bullet and he cant. At this point, another doctor, interestingly enough an africanamerican doctor how many of them were there in america at the time names charles pervis had seen enough and says stop this. Remarkably, bliss did. But then they decided they need to move the president to the white house. They take him to the white house and everyone decides theres no way garfield is going to survive the night. This is going to be fatal. But mrs. Garfield says, here is the telegram and decides shes going to come down. Shes not well, but shes going to come and be with her husband if she could. A special train is immediately put together to bring her down, and to make matters worse, 18 miles north of washington, the bars connecting the engine to the rest of the train snap and the engine malfunctions. The train continues for two more miles ripping up the tracks and the engine almost explodes. If it exploded, everyone on the train, 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 the confusion going on and, doctors running around, dr. Bliss decides its his turn to take command of the situation. He decides that he is going to be in charge of everything, the medicine, who could see the president , what would be done, where he would be. High on his suspect is people who believe in lister and sepsis. Anyone who believes 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. Bliss considers the greatest threat to garfields health to be other doctors. Who will get in his way. Garfields personal position, dr. Hide 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 that this argument is not helping the president and walks away. Thereby 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 both the president and mrs. Garfield asked for me to be in charge. Mrs. Garfield later said she never was asked and would never have come to that decision. Mrs. Garfield had two other doctors in mind. The first was a doctor named silas bowman, a longtime friend and close physician when he was in ohio. When he came, she sent him a telegram and he came and bliss says, i dont need you here but if you must be here you can be a nurse. And the second doctor mrs. Garfield wanted 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 going to be nurses, not doctors. So bliss was in charge. He issued daily bulletins on the president s health. His condition fluctuated. Fevers came and went. He struggled to keep down solid foods, spent most of the summer eating little, only liquids. He was in excruciating pain for the last 80 days of his life. Although he was in terrible condition, bliss refused to allow the president to 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. As a result, even worse the plumbing system in the white house was over 100 years old or almost 100 years old. The pipes were disintegrating. The basement was full of foul smells. The water fluid flowing through the white house was foul. The building was close to the tidal basin area which then 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 ordered to protect the president from malaria, bliss said he should be given daily doses of quinine, five to ten grams. Not only can it in those dosages be fatal, they cause intestinal cramping which caused the further problems for the president s already ravaged digestive system. It was so hot that they decided to develop an air conditioning system and it was the first air conditioner in america. He took a huge block of ice and they had fans blowing across. They were able to lower the temperature in the president s room by 20 degrees, it made so much noise the president said i would rather have the heat than this noise and 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. Alexander graham bell is a major figure because he invented the telephone. He decided to be helpful. And since bliss said that the key thing was finding the bullet and they did not have xrays at the time, he decided to develop a metal detector to try and find the bullet through metal. And so he worked feverishly to come up with a metal detector. And it works. And they pulled out a number of civil war veterans and they that had bullets in them left over, and it went click, click, click, there it is. They had something that looked like a telephone and it worked. He goes to bliss and says, i can find the bullet. Bliss says, i dont believe you. He brings over civil war veterans, click, click, click, they worked. They take him to the white house, here he is with the new metal detector trying to find it. Problem. He said the bullet went to the right. Click, click, click. There it is. It works. They open the president. No bullet. It was a spring metal frame bed. It would have gone click, click, click, no matter where they had it. So it didnt work because it wasnt used properly because he was laying on the bed. Garfield is bedridden for the summer. Graham bells thing doesnt work and they cant find the bullet. He is in extreme pain. He is starting to develop sepsemia and the doctors decide to operate. And, of course, this is another bad thing that they do. By now, the infection in his body is so toxic that its a danger to anyone near him. And while doing the operation, bliss accidentally slices his finger. And pus from the president gets into his finger and, as a result, he gets something called pus fever and his hand swells up so much that he has to put dr. Bliss has to put his hand in a slipping for days afterward. Garfields weight drops from over 200 pounds to 130. He is unable to keep food down. Bliss begins to fear that garfield will die of starvation. Hes unable to keep any food down other than oatmeal and, sadly, the only food that garfield hates is oatmeal. Hes suffering from profound dehydration. He cant keep liquids down. In todays world he would be given an iv. In those days he didnt have it. He suffers from hallucinations, blood poisoning and infection are causing greater pain and problems. In the meantime whenever he is lucid he tells jokes, hes trying to be the model patient 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 on her head or a hat when she comes to see him. Finally, its decided to get out of the heat from washington and take him back to elberon in new jersey. On september 6th a specially quipped train takes him to new jersey in the belief, in the hope, that maybe if hes at the seaside, the fresh air, seeing the ocean, will somehow revive him. Unfortunately, new infection set in as well as spasms of angina. On monday, september 19, 1881 at 10 20, he suffers a massive heart attack and an nur ris m. Heart attack and an an yourism following blood poisoning and bronchial pneumonia. Dr. Bliss unsuccessfully tries to revive the fading president. Garfields final words are my work is done. Mrs. Garfield leans over her dying husband and yells, 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 taken to cleveland where he is finally buried on september 26. He is survived by his mother who died seven years later in 1888 and lucretia survives him for 36 years, living a very quiet, but seemingly comfortable life. The five children who went who grew into adulthood all did very well. The eldest, harry, became a lawyer and a professor of government at princeton. Then, like his father, he became a University President at his fathers university, williams. James became a lawyer and would serve as secretary of the interior under teddy roosevelt. The third, irwin, became a lawyer. Abram, known as abe, became an architect. Molly, the daughter mary was her name, but everyone called her molly, mary is the president s top assistant, Joseph Stanley brown, who had gone to yale, and was sort of a second son to her, an additional son to the president , very close to garfield, and he becomes a very successful investment banker. The kids do very, very well. Most historians and doctors and every historian i read on this came to the same conclusion, and that is, that garfield would have certainly survived if the doctors had left him alone. The bullet was lodged in his fatty tissues. Within a week or ten days, maybe two weeks, he would have been out walking. He would have been fine. He was certainly in no danger. Had garfield been shot 15 years later, the bullet would have been found very quickly with an xray machine, but it didnt happen. He would have been treated with antiseptic surgery. By then, america bought into lister, but at the time they didnt. He would have been back on his feet within a matter of days or a week. Unfortunately for most, garfield did not understand antisepsis and the need for cleanliness to prevent infection. In addition, all of the probing 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. And the autopsy also revealed pneumonia in both lungs and was filled with so much pus that it was uncontrolled sepsemia. Chester arthur was in new york when he found out that the president had died and his Immediate Reaction was, oh, no, tell me this isnt true. Arthur was known as a man of leisure. He liked fine whines and dinner parties. He spent a lot of time grooming that moustache and those side burns. He was very proud of them. His wife had died shortly before and he moved in with roscoe conkling. Roscoe conkling was at the time had a place in new york and thats who he was living with. When he first got the news arthurs first comment was, i hope my god it was a mistake, but it was not a mistake. He travels from new york to new jersey to be with mrs. Garfield and to pay his respects. Well come back to him and his when we go over what happened to the various folks. Time to move on to Charles Guiteaus trial. The case of United States versus Charles Guiteau began in november of 1881, less than two months after garfields death. Americans greatest fear is that guiteau 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 guiteau could not find an attorney to represent him because no one wanted to represent the assassin of a president. Finally he got george skoville to represent him. Skoville was married to guiteaus sister francis whom he tried to attack with an ax. Thats not who you want as your attorney. Scoville was a patent attorney. He had never tried a criminal case. He was, however, the only attorney willing to take the case. Scoville said, if i did not think the unfortunately r man was insane, i would not have defended him at all and his defense was insanity. As hard as it was to find an attorney it was equally hard to find jurors because everyone in america thought guiteau was guilty, he was caught right there, there was no question about it, and so they interviewed over 200 people before they finally or 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 journalists, to see the trial. Guiteau began his defense by asking if he could give a statement. And his statement said that he wanted to indict the president s true murderers, the doctors. He said i was the shooter, the killer were the doctors. The doctors who 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 during the trial, youre a jackass, i must tell you that in public, im sorry to say, but youre a 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 that he wrote. He would get up periodically and sing john browns body. He claims 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 the first class family, object, matrimoniny. So he was looking to see if he could get married because of this. He said that the lady 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 who got close enough to guiteau to shoot him jack ruby still, but didnt hit guiteau himself. As the trial war on, he began to say that he was sane before the assassination, insane just prior and during and insane again. Therefore, he should be 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 to keep it. He then 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 his grandfather had this marvelous watch which he sold to him on his death bed. I mean, what do you pay when youre on trial for murdering the president. What are you going to do with it . He was very dismayed and very surprised when the jury issued a verdict, unanimous, on in less than an hour, january 25th, 1882, finding him guilty. And when it was the verdict was issued, there was tremendous applause. He then appealed and then wrote a letter to president arthur saying, the only reason you are president is because of me, and if i hadnt shot him one wouldnt be president. You owe me. True thing. 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 poem which he said was not a poem and he asked to play while he could sing his song on his way to the gallows, he was allowed to read the poem, but there was no orchestra. 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 system. The collector. He was corrupt and fired from that. First thing he did was broke off contact with conkling and said you are corrupt, i want nothing to do with you. Conkling felt totally angered by this to put it mildly. Chester arthur worked with a senator from ohio, pendleton, to draft and then 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 that 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 with is outrageous. He realized he was powerless to control the man who he had created and he went back in 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 time did a good job job. That said, the republicans did not renominate him for president after his term ended. And, instead, the republicans nominated james blain, 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 democrat was elected president. Cleveland was elected twice, but was the only democrat elected president. Arthur moves back to new york where hes diagnosed suffering from brights disease, an excruciatingly painful kidney disease, fatal at time, and dies at the age of 56. Conkling then goes and gives a speech at a funeral at Chester Arthurs funeral and refers to him as his accident. Conkling himself falls ill in new york while walking home from his girlfriends house during a blizzard and dies in 1888 of pulmonary endema. Dr. Bliss, our famous physician, hoped that this case would tremendously thrust him into the leadership of the medical profession in america. Obviously, exactly the opposite happened. The entire medical community in the United States turned on him. Within months after garfields death, the boston medical and surgical journal printed an article criticizing bliss not for doing too little, but for doing too much. Bliss has done more to cast distrust upon american surgery than anyone ever in our medical history. Another journal, medical journal, concluded that none of the injuries inflicted by the assassins bullet were necessarily fatal and that listeria method of wound treatment would have prevented the death of the president. 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 no one in the country could have treated the president better and, as a result, sent a bill to the congress for his services of 25,000 which in those days was enormous. The congress debated the manner and agreed to give him 6,500. He was so outraged at this 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. 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. 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 its time 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 walked daily past the garfield statue. Its a nine foot bronze statue in front on the west side of the capitol right near the helicopter landing 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 go the gone on long enough. I would last week the questions were far better than the talk. So i would be glad to entertain some questions. Yes, sir . During the 80 days when the president was dying, who was running the country . Who was doing the oh, okay. During the 80 days when the president was dying, who was running the country . Daytoday. 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, blain 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. And 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, i believe its the 22nd amendment. Woodrow wilson is incapacitated towards the last year and a half of his life and mrs. Wilson is almost a surrogate president , determining who should be able to see the president. She fires the secretary of state because she doesnt like lancing. And so 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 . What were his credentials . Where did you go to college and why did he 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 tells what better than to make the white house a hospital . With one patient, with all these helpers around. And so bliss was the one who turned down the idea at the 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 hospital, they would bring it over. In tubltzp churz ub in terms of Chester Arthur, i honestly dont know what his credentials were. He had never run for Political Office before. The only job i know he had was the port collector of new york, he was fired because of corruption. He had no real background and 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, and so i can comment a little bit on the premise. I agree pretty much what you said if they left him alone certainly his chances would have improved significantly. Still got to remember the bullet traveling at relatively low speed would not necessarily create the amount of heat to create staserile conditions and theres still a chance without antibiotics he could have died from infection. Ill point out in 1876 Joseph Lister came to this country and gave a series of lectures where he said he was treated very politely but basically the response was thank you, doctor, go back to europe. You did point out it did take a while for American Physicians to ado adopt. In my defense at the time of the civil war and thelengthen assassination this predated all of his bad stuff. He was also the Commanding Officer of Armory Square hospital which is where charles leel served. Thank you. 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 of facts. You know that out of four president s lincoln, mckinically and kennedy was shot on a friday. Did you know that . Yeah, things like that, okay. Garfield and reagan were shot like a hundred years apart from each other and both of the guys who shot them were mentally ill. And they kept at st. Elizabeths which is where i think they also kept hinkley. Theres so many of these convinces. Kennedy was short in the ford and lincoln was short in fords theater and kennedys secretary was named mrs. Lincoln, and both kennedy and lincoln were replaced by Vice President s named johnson. Im sorry . 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 counsel. There was no domestic policy advisor to the president. It was much smaller and simpler. Great question. First of all, great you mentioned half breeds and stallers. Where does half breeds come from . I dont know. Both were nicknames use frd the two wings of the Republican Party at the time. Yes, sir and yes, maam . Given the examples of garfields brilliance how was 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 are William Harry harrison who served even shorter, he was in for 32 days 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 looking at him the better his ratings are going. People are going wow. And during the presidency of mckinley and well talk about this next week, the United States moved from being just a domestic country to becoming an international player. So mckinleys ratings are going up tremendously. Garfield, they dont even count. Okay, tarzan, it was good to see you. At the very beginning of your talk you said something i thought was kind of interesting. Just at the beginning. Well, i was so mesmerized by that one thing. There are many, many interesting things as you know. You said he was opposed to slavery, called it evil, i think, and specifically talked about education for africanamericans and yet you said he was not an abolitionist. Is that you want to help us understand that piece . He just he viewed the abolitionists as trying to end slavery through violence. But he was so opposed to slavery and as soon as the civil war broke out when the civil war broke out 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 have 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 they sit around together and no ones 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 among africanamericans at the time was well under 30 and he was talking about education for them. Could he have improved the scientific methods used by American Farmers 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 sphthat was something he would have worked on. He certainly wanted to move forward with Civil Service reform. Could he have passed it gotten it passed, i dont know because it wasnt moving until after he died. So those were the issues he was focusing on. 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 Linden Johnson knowing how to work things through the system. Hed been in congress for 18 years. So he might have been able to get more done than someone like rutherford hayes, his predecessor who antagonized everyone in congress. Great question. I was wondering if grant would be considered a half breed or a stalward and if the reason he felt grant would be someone who could be elected because he still would have been wellknown and well loved as the general of the union arm or he because he thought he was someone who he could i guess for lack of a better word he could control. You just answered your question with the last sentence. Grant was not well. He felt he would have been his guy. Grant did not want to run for president. And he felt if grant were elected president it would have been because of conklen, and he could have been the de facto president. Grant was neither stalwart or half breed, he was sort of above it all. Particularly when you look at reconstruction during this 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 the only reason he was pushing gran was not because of grant but he wanted to block blayne. And he wanted to ensure blaine didnt get it. Did you say more how 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 resident of the state they live in and a resident of the state in the senate. You dont necessarily have to show up. I mean today they count votes and see what your pessage is in voting, but you get elected doesnt mean you necessarily have to show up. Obviously if you dont show up constituents will not reelect you. But certainly since he was a significant general in the civil war everyone understood he wasnt physically there. So i will hang out. Some of you are wanting to go and find out whats happening in the hockey game. Next week is mckinley, another set of really fascinating stories. This morning on capitol hill members of the Senate Intelligence committee are holding a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Peter Thompson to the cia inspector general. Youre watching live coverage on cspan 3