Complicated and controversial building of a memorial to president James Garfield on the u. S. Capitol grounds. Well hear from Matthew Gilmore who edits a washington, d. C. History blog. Those of you probably know matt by name, if not in person. He runs a blog, the matthew b. Gilmore press blog and also hes an author of the column of the intowner. If you follow d. C. History, hes been integrally involved. Anything history in d. C. Oh, you also run the d. C. History list. Thank you for that on behalf of the city. Today hes going to talk about James Garfield, his death and efforts to commemorate his life and death here in washington, d. C. I wont say too much more about it. I dont want to steal his steam. Please join me in welcoming matt. [ applause ] thank you very much. The story im going to tell might be ripped from todays or recent headlines. There was a president ial memorial delayed for years caught up in congressional infighting. Legislation pending. A powerful lobby behind the memorial chose the site and the design, criticized in the press, and the designer without competition. The site close to the capitol on maryland avenue. The year is 1887, not 2017 and the memorial was one to president garfield, not president eisenhower. Garfields death was a national shock. He was struck down less than six months into his term. He had been a compromised candidate for the presidency and won the closest election in American History. He had a difficult life, epitom riches story, a selfmade man. This is reflected in a passage from one of his favorite poems. Moving from higher to higher becomes the crowning slope, the pillar of peoples hope. He was a pillar of hope, a refuge from a caustic set of divisions in the republican party. He was a tragic figure of unrealized potential. His term was mired in controversy from the very start and his personal life overwrought with the death of his wife la krchee that garfiel. He returned to the white house for medical care. He was not a disappointed office seeker, but was a delusion character with dreams for Public Service. The long agonizing death of garfield captivated public attention during the summer of 1881. The end came on september, the 19th. In new jersey of a summer of suffering in the white house. He had been moved when it became clear he could never recover. His body was brought back to the capitol. Garfield was the sixth man to lie in state in the rotunda. This the second president ial assassination was in some ways more shocking than the first. Gito motivated by office seeking. Here he is laying in state in the rotunda. Calls to create a memorial were immediate. The army of the veterans who had put up the statue of general henry thomas led the charge. The filling of washington circles and squares with heroes had only begun very recently in 1874. With only five up to that point. Garfield had attended the grand ceremonial unveiling of the statue just that february. The initial fundraising for garfields memorial suggested that his statue would be located in a Public Square in washington and the and there was a goal of a sum of not less than 200,000 and a very optimistic completion date of three years. Fundraising efforts for statue had to compete with a number of other projects such as a memory hospital and a statue in cleveland. What form and where the memorial would take place was open to question by 1883, two years after, the post was against a statue. They proposed a garfield fountain as 7th street and louisiana where the temperance fountain now sits. The site for the garfield statue at the foot of the west front of the Capitol Grounds was chosen in 1884. The site had only been recently created. The two traffic circles west of the capital at pennsylvania and maryland avenues respectively had been created when frederick homestead redesigned the Capitol Grounds designing which had begun in 1874. The circle at pennsylvania avenue held the naval monument erected in 1877 lost in the civil war. The circle at maryland avenue was yet still empty. In december 1884, the star reported on Senate Package ssag competing bill for the statue of lafayette to go into that circle. An equestrian statue would be sited in that circle the struggle was not resolved until march 6th, 1887. Three months before the dedication. Colonel john m. Wilson sent letters to congressmen, to colonel so sculptor ward, general barrett trying to ensure an on time completion and unveiling. The numbered and letters filed remain on file in the National Archives. This is the site west of the capital. I believe it is before the statue was placed there. I want to say it absolutely is. But are those trees hiding the memorial . I dont think so. I think this is before its erected. So this is what this is what the area looked like. This is what it looks like now. Ty toi took this picture recent and this is the invitation to the unveiling march 11th and 12th im sorry, may 11th and 12th, 1887. John quincy adams ward sculpted the statue. And Richard Morris hunt designed the pedestal for the statue. Both men were renowned in their fields and known as the dean of american sculpture and would collaborate on 13 monuments. Ward has a predominant place in washington, d. C. , public art having been commissioned by the army of the cumberland to create that statue of general thomas erected which was erected in 1879 in Thomas Circle. Garfields statue doesnt have quite as an imposing a location but historians consider the Garfield Monument to be one of the outstanding achievements of american art movement. So beyond the statue, there are other legacies of garfield in the city which have come and gone. As soon as the memorial statue was proposed, a Memorial Hospital was suggested as an alternative. Garfield had not been taken to a hospital and was rather treating him as home was the standard for the time. Washington had no General Hospital at the time rather, half a dozen more specialized hospitals serving certain special needs or populations. The need was apparent and seeing the precedent of fords theatre which had been closed to a medical museum after the death of president lincoln, a similar idea was mooted after garfields death, turn the baltimore station into a hospital. October 5th a Public Meeting was held and december 5th, the bill was in congress to incorporate garfield Memorial Hospital. But the unhealthness of the proposed location was soon realized. Predominant colleagues of garfields, including james t. Blaine, spearheaded the fundraising efforts. Efforts were made between various competing garfield memorialization efforts for the statues in washington and the hospital in washington to do some collaborative fundraising. But scattered press reports of each effort folding in favor of the other show the underlying rivalries between the projects. A grand reception and tea party was held may 6th in the capital rotunda. This is not the first i was hoping this was one of the first representations in the rotunda of this kind, but there had been others previously. Refreshments were held in the rotunda and dancing in the hall. Music was supplied by the marine band. Despite lastminute issues, the event went off brilliantly with 6,000 people in attendance. An amusing side note, one of the documented one of the discontented press sniped as using the Supreme Court chamber as a cloak room and the hall as a ballroom with ladies of dubious reputation in attendance and the press suggested a majority of Society People were not there in attendance. A newspaper solicitation in 1882 for property available to locate that garfield hospital netted over 60 Properties Available for purchase including bellevue which is now Dumbarton House and other areas around the city, and suburban farmland to the north, south and east. Ultimately thellen l. H. Schneid property was chosen and purchased for the location of the hospital which opened june 18, 1884. Theres the reception card. And there is the hospital. In addition to the statue and the hospital, other commemorations to garfield exist around the city. In the 1880s Real Estate Development was leapfrogging beyond the city into the surrounding suburban washington county. The development was unregulated giving those involved great latitude to name the new neighborhoods. George e. Emmins named his land garfield. The streets are named after republican military men including colonel reynolds who was a classmate of general grant at west point. Several other streets in various other subdivisions around the city had streets named after garfield. In 1895, further uphill from the garfield subdivision, garfield highlights was laid out and in 1908, Garfield Elementary school was built to serve that neighborhood. The rand it was squelched in the 1890s with highways. All of the street names were regularized and future streets in the district were named. Some small garfield streets in various subdivisions, Washington Heights and nearby widows might were abolished, but garfield was memorialized with a major street in northwest running across a broad swath of washington. So the current garfield street that exists. Garfield was a member of the disciples of christ church. The church he attended which was by then often referred to as Garfield Memorial Church was replaced with a new structure. This building still exists, occupied by a different area. The church involved into National CityChristian Church on Thomas Circle and still includes a garfield memorial window. Across the city, Garfield Park in southeast washington at new jersey and virginia avenues was one of the original reservations of land set aside in the plans for the city, reservation number 17. It had remained unimproved for most of its existence up to that point. In 1874, the opportunity was saw to connect it to the capital grounds with a park along the site of the old james creek canal. That didnt happen. Improvements began in 1882 and by 1883 the park which had been previously unnamed became Garfield Park. I did not find any documentation as far as a specific naming, but thats when they started referring to it as such. Now, garfield was unusual in that he built a home in washington as a congressman. So his home was at 1227 i street. The house was immediately across from Franklin Square and down the block from Franklin School which was dedicated october 2, 1869. The site was just a few blocks from the white house but still on the edge of developing washington. It was unusual for that era for a congressman to build a home in washington. Generally only wealthy politicians had a washington home. Garfield, however, had a wife and five Young Children and decided to make washington his home. Now, after garfields death, lucretia sold the house to a pioneer in apartment house development. He hired an architect to transform the former garfield home into an apartment house called the garfield. Now, the building was given a new address, 901 13th street, just using the other side. It was a large house, but a small Apartment Building. It was only five units. Ultimately that area began along decline and the building was renamed the atlantic in the 1920s. And interesting things happened there, the night manager was convicted of running a body house during world war ii, the garfield connections were forgotten and it was quietly demolished in 1963 or thereabouts. Thats what the house looked like. It was basically impossible to find any images. This is from a book. You can see general garfields washington home. That would be the 13th street side. So additional legacies garfield left washington i would say need a job done, get a garfield. Garfields legacy also was his three sons who provided significant Public Service in the 20th century. The garfields had seven children, two of whom died young. The eldest son was harry, nicknam nicknamed hal. As a lawyer he taught politics at Princeton University where he made the fateful friendship of princeton president woodrow wilson. Wilson called on hal to lead the fuel administration during world war i. While that doesnt seem like all that, it was a very powerful position of command and control, managing distribution of coal supplies in the country. He did hal held the position and resigned in december of 1919. The next garfield son, hals brother james, a lawyer and also a politician, served in several republican administrations. He served in theodores roosevelt commerce and labor, then as secretary of the interior until the end of roosevelts term in 1909. James decided to leave at the end of roosevelts term rather than serve under taft. He rejoined his brother Third Brother in cleveland. The youngest surviving son, abram, helped direct washingtons development directly. But quietly behind the scenes. An characteristic in cleveland, he too had a Theodore Roosevelt connection. Abram was appointed in 1909 to the National Council of fine arts. President Theodore Roosevelts ill starred, precurv ser of the National Commission of fine arts. They met only once to review the sitting of the Lincoln Memorial before the order was rescinded by the new president William Howard taft. Abram garfield indicated that all of the participants on the commission recognized the fragility of the council and the likelihood that taft would abolish it at the behest of congressional opposition. But abram came back and served on the successor body, the commission of fine arts from 1925 to 1930 including a stint as vice chair leaving federal Government Service 50 years after his fathers death. Garfields political legacy would seem to be quite thin since he served effectively as president for only four months. Now, he had been a highly respected military man and legislator, respected enough to win a president ial nomination he never sought and the president ial election too. Through the distance of time, all of the circumstances are murky, but some of his decisions, some relating to washington, seemed to have been worth questioning. His dedication to friends could lead him astray as when he took on the completion of a lobbying job for a firm at the urging of his friend richard parsons. They were competing for contracting with the districts board of public works. Garfield supported shepherds bold improving efforts. Quote, hoping that in all of this, in all of your efforts to beautify our National City, you may be abundantly successful. Garfield wrote to shepherd. However, garfield was chair of the Appropriations Committee which controlled the districts budget. It did not look good that he earned 5,000, which was the same as his congressional the reform banner but battled stronger headwinds. His predecessor was not a reformer but had been a loyal member of the new york machine. It may have been garfields symbolic martyrdom that changed the political client to allow the passage of the act. At the time of garfields death, it was a tragedy of unfulfilled potential. The Washington Post tribute was glowing citing quality of a great soul and attention to his mother. This is Abram Garfields letter about the council of fine arts. This is kind of symbolic of the way people pictured it. Aim h Abraham Lincoln welcomig garfield into heaven. I got that picture from the library of congress from their files and it wasnt really clear where that appeared. It was in the popular press. The garfield family collected and preserved their family papers. The family home and mentor, a National Historic site, housed most of them. Over the decades, the library of congress continued to acquire the papers. Charles moore former acting head of the library of congress in charge of those efforts wrote in 1940 to Abram Garfield who was a former colleague of his as a member of the commission of fine arts how pleased he was that the garfield family worked out differences with the library of congress and got the papers to the library. All of these papers are there and they include a lock of hair. The letter book and auditing claims for compensation for those who assisted treating the president are in the National Archives and is the correspondence regarding the erection of the statue. Ohio gave a statue of garfield in 1886 and an oil portrait in the House Appropriations chairmans office. Several vertebrae from garfields spine pierced by the bullet are on display at the National Museum of medical history. The National Museum of health and medicine commemorated the 125th anniversary of the shooting with an exhibit on garfields death, exhibited for 80 days, the same period the same amount of time that garfield suffered and died. The equipment that Alexander Graham bell used to find the bullet in garfield is at the National Museum of American History. Numbers of these commemorations of garfield have vanished or many have been threatened at least once in their existence. The baltimore and potomac station was torn down in 1908. The National Gallery occupies the site. The station memorializing the shooting have been lost. The star reported the removal. His home was transferred into an Apartment Building and swept away in the 1960s. The statues of the general have come under attack a number of times. Garfields statue was threatened with removal in 1900 when the mcmillan planned a union square at the base of the capital and would have swept away both traffic circles, both the naval and Garfield Monuments. In 1959, congress considered removing the garfield statue again for traffic concerns and referred that to the commission of fine arts but that got dissipated. In 1958, garfield Memorial Hospital emerged with the hospitals into the Washington Hospital center. It was replaced by a housing complex, the garfield terrace, noted sorry, designed by noted local modernist architect nicholas satterly. The garfield name is ignored and the area is frequently called the Woodland Terrace housing project. Garfield neighborhood usually called now woodland. Garfield Memorial Church transformed the National City community Christian Church, although just steps away from his previous location. So why is garfield so unknown generally today, such a short time in office, eliminated the chance for series accomplishments and leaving just the lost possible, that lost potential is commemorated in various ways but is valuable and resonant to those who saw it. But as those people slip away, that appreciation of that loss potential slips away as well. Thank you. [ applause ] questions . Ive heard it said that garfield might well have been the most brilliant president weve ever had. I heard the legend that he could speak greek and latin and i heard. Is there any truth that that is true about him . He was a very well educated man. Im not sure about the writing two different languages with two different hands. But he was he was, you know, very well educated, particularly, for his name and thats you saw on his memorial that they commemorate those aspects of his life and career. So, yes, mostly. Yes. A couple of things. Im a native washingtonian, and i seem to remember seeing inside the National Gallery of art a little plaque saying on this site president garfield was assassinated. I think his main legacy is his civil rights stand. He was very strong for the rights of the freed men and resisted the efforts of the south to overcome reconstruction. What is your perspective on that . The National Gallery question is easier. I dont believe theres ever been a marker in the National Gallery. The site itself is in the middle of constitution avenue. And from all ive heard, read and seen, the National Gallery resists including that kind of commemoration there. Im not sure why. Thats the impression that ive been given from what ive read and seen. There are efforts there have been efforts by various people to put a new marker, probably close tore t closer to the apex building. Putting a marker in the middle of the street would be kind of moot. As far as the civil rights career, you know, he served for a number of years in congress, house and senate. I didnt go deeply into that part of it because i was starting basically with how did we end up with this man as president and then what happened subsequently. So i cant really address that. Im sorry. Yes, maam . Im sorry if i missed what you may have said. What are the or what is in his home state . In his home state. Thats where hes buried. There is a statue in cleveland as well which looks a bit like the one here. His house, lawnwood is a National Historical site. And its not that was before president ial libraries existed and, like i said, all of his personal all of the manuscript materials were acquired by the library of congress as part of their part of their efforts. Thank you. Where is his house located . In ohio. Its a federal Historic Site and theres a museum next to it thats really, really well done. I took a tour of it at night in connection with the conference i was attending and i have to say, it is one of the most beautiful i dont know what you would call it, maybe arts and crafts style, shingle style, its a combination. But inside is the most Beautiful Decor from that period, the 1880s and 1890s. And seeing it by gaslight or name in dusk is the way to do it. If you can ever get there, my understanding is that fund raisers gave a pile of money to lucretia as a way of thanking the family of the martyred president and they spent it well. Its a beautiful, beautiful home littered with books. Just a plug for ohio. Other questions . Yes, sir. You said it was a close race for the presidency. What was the electoral distribution of votes for his president . Thats a very good question. I would have to look that up. The popular vote was extremely close. Who was his opponent . Hancock. General hancock. Yes, sir. He was in the civil war. Yes. What was his claim to fame there . Was he in any particular battle and what position did he hold, do you recall . He rose to the rank of general. I dont know that he saw any significant battle experience. Again, it was he had a solid career, solid life of education, military service, political service. And so i concentrated on kind of the conclusion im sorry, i concentrated on the conclusion of that. Being a general, was that a function of a politician first or he was a politician after. He was a politician after. I believe he fought in the battle of chattanooga. Okay. He won the electoral vote 214155, but the popular vote was virtually tied. 48. 27 to 48. 25. Exactly. We had a sequence of republican president s from a third candidate as well, each below 50 . There must have been a third candidate . Yes, chuck, please. There was a book that came out a few years ago about the assassination and it seemed i havent read it all. I own it. Its upstairs. But i havent read. Maybe someone can recommend me to move it up on my reading list. And i think it was suggesting that they colluded, if i can use that word, in the historical context, colluded with other forces to have him assassinated because they were afraid of the reforms that he was on the threshold of promoting. Does that ring a bell with anyone . Do you remember which book that is . Whats her name . Candice well, having read i concentrated more looking at guiteau. Guiteau just seems to have been a random character. He came to washington he participated a little bit, a little bit, in the republican campaign. I think he gave half of a speech. Got stage fright and ran off. Wrote a published a pamphlet, based on that contribution decided he decided that he should be the envoy to paris, to france which seems a little bit overgenerous for his efforts. And so he would go from office to office lobbying. I think he took his request down to just vienna, ultimately, that he would be satisfied with vienna. But he was one of the people i dont know if there still are around washington, where hes the guy sitting in the outer office waiting to talk to whatever secretary, you know waiting to talk to james t. Blaine or someone saying im here, im ready to be appointed to as envoy to france. Here is the pamphlet i published as part of the campaign. I deserve something for that. And no one ever really wanted to just they brushed him off but they didnt just get rid of him. So he kept wondering around. He would go to his go to a hotel, stay there, run out on his bill, go to another hotel, stay there, run out on his bill and finally he just decided that he would take care of garfield and got a gun and shot him. That was before you purchased the envoy positions. Yes, yes. No ones taking issue with the way i entitled this, which i was slightly surprised with, when i said hes the most memorialized in washington and least remembered. What i was trying to get at is there were lots of different ways he was memorialized with the neighborhoods, with the streets, with the hospital, with the statue. So you could argue that washington himself is more memorialized in washington with the name, with his statue. But there is someone was saying, wouldnt you consider Washington Heights to be named after im like, well, okay, well quibble on that one and there is no theres finally a washington street. There hadnt been. So thats why i make the claim that, you know, its ironic that someone who no one really remembers now and didnt have a significant president ial career has was memorialized so much. I read one book on president ial assassinations where the author got it wrong. He said, well, when garfield was shot, there were no there was no reaction, no efforts to memorialize him as opposed to others like kennedy and others. And i kind of read that and i went back to all of the original newspapers and im like, no, lots of people wanted to do lots of things to commemorate garfield. Yes. Whats the story with Alexander Graham bell and the bullet . So they took garfield back to the white house having been he was on his way from the potomac station. But guiteau shot him. They took him back to the white house. Thats what you did. You took people home to take care of them. And there were a number of physicians trying to help. And they couldnt find the bullet. So they were digging into him trying to find the bullet and they were unsuccessful. Bell thought about it and said, well, i have equipment where i could detect the bullet, i could detect that metal fragment inside a body. Well, that would have worked if garfield werent on metal springs. So the bed and nobody told bell this. So they couldnt so it wasnt going to work because there was too much noise. The physician was looking over here and the bullet was over here. They were misdirected. I cant imagine the suffering he went through. They came up with rudimentary kinds of airconditioning which sped development of that. They started off with tubs of water, tubs of salt water, and cloths dipped into it. You can imagine its 150 humidity, just not very pleasant. They came up with other some other technology which at first was too noisy. But then got better. So at first he said just turn it off. Its too noise. But the navy came up with better options. Thats kind of the origination of airconditioning as well which i tell during this story. He was conscious during this yeah, he had one cabinet meeting. He was a big, husky man, Football Player type. And they fed him not not intravenously, but a different way, rather unpleasant, thinking about it, but, you know, soon hes and he rallied for a while and you can imagine people are hoping that hes going to get better. But its hard to imagine these days that, you know, there would be a president ial health watch and everybody, a reporter outside, and essentially there were in the press. People writing press reports every day. The doctor would report out, you know, the president s getting better. Theres a letter from theres a letter from little abram saying, you know, dear mom, im glad to hear father is getting better. And this is in july. So 20 days into it, hes getting better. Well, obviously, he was probably Holding Stable but not getting better. Yes, maam . Just thinking of the time of the year, one accomplishment that i share with groups as a tour guide is that garfield dedicated or launched the first decoration day, may 30th, 1868, in Arlington National cemetery. And we now call it memorial day. Pete, you know. And the first memorial theatre. That launched on decoration day. For me, garfield is alive and well in memory and i try to share that with as many visitors as possible. Very good. Thats allnother legacy. I like to talk about garfield. It was in the book called the destiny of the republic and she said he was murdered by the doctors and not by his assassin. He would have survived if they left him alone. Yes, that is true. If they had left if they had stopped trying to serve for the bullet and stopped infecting him, they didnt really believe in they werent worried about their hands. And they thought the they thought that the development of pus was a good thing. You just read the description, its like, oh, man, what he went through was just horrifying. So, yes, the doctors did end up killing him. And as i mentioned, theres all kinds of documentation about all of these different aspects of things around the city. But the docket of the National Archives of people listing their claims, what they thought they were owed by being part of the president ial care, you know, there were guards who worked overtime and various doctors. Those are fascinating documents to look through. I think lets cut it off here because i want to say something. Thank you, again. Thank you. [ applause ] weeknights this months on American History tv, were featuring the contenders, our series that looks at 14 president ial candidates who lost the election but had a lasting effect on u. S. Politics. Tonight we feature former secretary of state william jennin Jennings Brian who was a threetime president ial candidate. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern. And enjoy American History tv this weekend and every weekend on cspan3. I honestly will tell you, i dont think when the dust settles in this election its going to be whether america becomes more republican or more democrat. Whether were more liberal or more conservative, more red or more blue. I think the choice in this election is whether america remains america. And as joe biden has said from the moment he entered this race, its about the soul of our nation. Who we are. What we stand for. And maybe most importantly who we want to be. Watch the Vice President ial debate between Vice President mike pence and senator Kamala Harris live tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern from the university of utah in salt lake city. Watch the debates live on cspan, listen live on the cspan radio app, and go to cspan. Org debates for live or ondemand streaming of cspans debate coverage. Theres a link to each debate question and answer. See social media feeds on debate happenings and watch archival video from the cspan video library. In june of 1893 president Grover Cleveland underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his