Were now in the billiard room which is one of the rooms that was built as part of the addition that the blaines made to the house in 1872. This is also a room which has been a place to hang photographs and in some cases the christmas cards of the previous first families. The first family was the millikens, and this is a large family, Carl Milliken and his wife are shown in the photograph along with their large family. There have been 21 families who have called the blaine house their home from the millikins in 1920 to currently Governor Paul Lepage and his wife first Lady Ann Lepage beginning in 2011. Today when we think of james g. Blaine in maine, i think we think primarily of the blaine house. It really is a symbol of both the maine governorship. Thus the equating of the name blaine with the Governors Mansion really keeps his name alive and in the public today. The cspan radio app makes it easy to continue to follow the 2016 election wherever you are. Its free to download from the Apple App Store or google play. Get audio coverage and uptothe minute scheduling plus pod cast times for public affairs, books, and history programs. Stay up to date on the election coverages. Cspans radio app means you always have cspan on the go. James garfield served nine terms in the house of representatives and only 200 days as the 20th president of the United States. Before he succumbed to gunshot wounds from an 1881 assassination attempt. Up next, ralph discusses garfields life and death. Well hear about garfields wideranging intelligent and the complicating set of circumstances that ended in his death. This event from the Smithsonian Associates is about two hours. For quite a number of reasons i find the assassination fascinating. First of all, garfield is one of the most intelligent president s weve had. When we go through his life, but the end or the middle of it, youll start laughing. Because youre going to say, no, that cant be. He cant be that good in that field. Its just not possible. The hope for his presidency was enormous. Were going to discuss an absolutely brilliant human being. I was chatting with a friend before, and he asked me if i thought garfield was the most intelligent. I dont know how you test Something Like that. Its not as if you give president s iq tests. Its a lot easier with things that are easy to measure, tall and short. We all know madison was our shortest president , lincoln was our tallest. I dont know how you know the most intelligent. Certainly the two adams, madison, jefferson. But garfield is right up there. So one of the reasons its so exciting is because of who he was and how he could have changed america. Last week when we discussed lincoln, we were discussing had lincoln not been shot, how america would have been different. Would the south be so far behind the rest of the country to even today in education and health care and so many other areas. Would africanamericans have suffered for over 100 years the way they did had lincoln been in charge of reconstruction instead of Andrew Johnson and a congress that want to take revenge on the south and didnt really care about the africanamericans. So one of the reasons today is so interesting is the brilliance of garfield. And the second is the other main character in our story charles, it shows the failure of our Mental Health treatment in this country then and today. There is no doubt in my mind that Charles Guiteau was mentally ill and it was not treated properly then even though they knew. They told his father he needs to be institutionalized. Hes nuts. And the father agreed. But he said you know putting people in sanitariums, you have to pay. And the father said i cant afford it so they didnt institutionalize him. The contrast between garfield and his assassin is so astounding. Last week when we were discussing lincoln after the talk, a gentleman came up to me and asked me to recommend a book at each of the subsequent talks. I didnt do that last week. My failure. And so i was asked when he said that, i thought that was a very good idea. And obviously when you prepare talks like this, i use lots and lots and lots of sources. Secondary sources, books, and primary sources. A lot of the primary sources are now available on the internet. So you can read the letters of garfield and diaries and so forth. Its easy to get primary sources. But if i have to recommend one book, i will do that for garfield, mckinley and kennedy. In the case of garfield, a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president. Its a wonderful read. Okay, good. She is an excellent writer. If i were to read just one book on this topic, it would be this. Obviously i used it, but i used a lot of other its, as well. But there is no assignment after this. A couple members of my book club are here today and were not going to discuss it, but it would be the one book to take a look at. You dont even talk about garfield or people dont. And i remember a conversation i had in 1988. I know exactly the year with then congressman Dick Gephardt who was running for president. And i knew dick quite well and i asked him do you know the last member of the house who was elected from the house to become president. And he said no. I said let me give and you hint. Do you know who the only member of the house elected straight from the house to be president . And he still said no. And i said garfield. And he said they shot him. And i said youre running for the job, im not. But garfield as we see in a brief period was president elect, senatorelect from ohio and sitting congressman all at the same time. Fascinating, fascinating guy. At the time he was elected president , he was by far the youngest president we had had in American History to that date. Only two american president s in our history died before reaching the age of 50, kennedy and garfield. Obviously both for sad reasons. But hes the only house member and im trying to think quickly, obviously on the democratic side, this time no one from the house is running. And on the republican side, no one either. That im aware of. Its not a jumping stone or a stepping stone usually for the presidency. It occasionally happens, but that a house member tries to run for president. But not that often. Everyone senators, only two went straight from the senate to the white house. Harding and kennedy. Obviously obama did. And this time cruz, rubio and rand paul. So three senators are trying to move from the senate. But not that often from the house. Vice president s, not that many either. Only three that i can think ever went straight from the vice presidency to becoming president. Jefferson, van buren and bush senior. Governors more often. Anyway, on to garfield. Garfield was born in 1831. Died the year he was elected to be president in 1881. He served nine consecutive terms in the house and his presidency lasted only 200 days. He was inaugurated in march, he was shot on july second and he died in september. He lingered and well talk a little bit about his medical care and what happened to him. Garfield, James Garfield, was the youngest of five children. He was born in absolute extreme poverty. This is a recreation of his house in ohio. His family lived in a log cabin. They were so poor, they couldnt afford to put down a floor. So it was a dirt log cabin. His father died when garfield was 18 months old. Leaving his mother to raise five children on her own. So a single mom with five kids and no money. The family was so poor, he did not have his first paver of shoes until after he was four years old. Later on when people address mired how he rose from total poverty to becoming president of the United States, he didnt romanticize this at all. He said let us never praise poverty especially as a means of raising children. But you do need to really have a sense of awe about his mother eliza to be able to pull this off. To go from such poverty to get her son into the white house. She later claims to have been the first president s mother to move into the white house to take care of the kids. Remarkable woman herself. She was fiercely proud that she never accepted aid from everyone. They worked hard. And from her, he gained a love of learning, of education. And that defines his life. He more than anything else schooling, education for himself and then when hes president for the country is a key to understanding him. When his brother, his older brother, thomas was 11, thomas left home to work on other peoples farms to help raise money and he would send the money back or give the money back to mom. When james turned 11, he said its time for me to do the same thing. If thomas leaves home at 11 to work on farms, i will. And mom said no. She realized there was something very, very special about this kid and she said youre staying in school. Well support you. You need to stay in school. Thats the key to his life. It shapes his mind, it shapes his attitude. And it creates opportunities for him that otherwise never would have existed. Garfields parents were both members of the church of christ. He was never particularly religious growing up. At about age 19, he decided to go to church and his speaking skills were so good on his first day in church he asked the the pastor said would you like to say a few words and he was so remarkable that they said you need to go and travel around to other churches and give sermons. And people who heard him preach said if he decided to make his career in the ministry, would he have been one of the leading clergymen in america. He remains an elder in the church and resigns when he becomes president. And he said i resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States. Garfield at age 16, his life almost took a major change. All of a sudden he decided enough with school, i want to go and have a life on sea. Which was interesting because he couldnt swim. So he was living hundreds of miles away from the ocean. The closest he could find was get work on the canal. So he drops out of school, mom is totally devastated. He later said i broke my mothers heart as she feared this would end her high hopes for me. He takes a job on a canal boat. Unfortunately a few days after hes on the boat, he couldnt swim, all of a sudden he falls off the boat and he cant swim. And so hes going under and he grabs a rope and he yanks on the rope and hes able to pull himself up on to the boat and then he noticed that the rope wasnt attached to anything. But it got caught in a crack in the wood of boat and saved his life. And he was somehow able to pull himself up on this and he said i did not believe god paid any attention to me on my own account, but i came to believe he saved me for my mother and for something greater and better and so he went home. And he was a totally changed young man thinking this is something that i dont know why this happened, but god is sending me a signal. He also got very sick. He caught malaria. And he was so sick after ten days the fever broke and he thought he was okay and he had a severe relapse. For two months, who one knew if he was going to survive. When he finally survived and recovered his health, mom and brother thomas went to him and they said, thomas had saved 17 so far and they said were giving you this money on one condition, you go back to school. So he attended a number of local schools. And when he reached age 20, he decided its time to go on to the equivalent of college. He went to western reserve wch later became known as hiram college. But he could not afford the tuition so he got a job as the janitor. He would get at the 4 00 or 5 00 in the morning and chop wood and then prepare breakfast for the other students and then join them in class and then he would work in the kitchen to help them with lunch. Then afterwards, he would clean the latrines, clean the school, lower the flag at the end of the day and go back in his room and study. So he was a janitor in his first year. By his second year, he was promoted to assistant professor. Because in his first year, he learned and became fluent in greek and latin and was able to read virgil in the original. Again its every time you go through this, you say this is amazing. How is this possible. If you think its impressive that he was fluent in greek and latin after one year, the teacher said his best subject was math. Just to give you an idea of how good he was at math when he was in congress, he was bored for a while. And so he developed a trapezoid proof of the pythagorean theorem published in the new england journal of education and apparently garfields work in math is still taught in graduate math programs today. But despite his ability in both math and languages, his interest was science. So he studied the latest scientific discoveries. Remember hes taking a full course load as a student and hes teaching. Hes an assistant professor. So in his second year, he is teaching latin and one of his students was lucretia randolph. He was 19, she was 18, she was the student. She would later tell their daughter he was a big shy kid with a shock of unruly hair. He was as awkward and he was determined to learn everything and anything that came his way. They had virtually opposite personalities. He was this big hearted cheerful outgoing guy. He wouldnt shake hands with people, he would give people bear hugs. People laughed with him. He was great company. People loved being around this extroverted Big Wonderful guy. She on the other hand was shy, soft spoken, very private. In her diary, she wrote she was fearful that she would be considered cold and heartless. Their courtship was awkward to put it mildly. Even though he was an incredible extrovert, he couldnt talk to her. He couldnt tell her what he felt about her. And she couldnt talk to him. And this is not a good thing if you are courting. It seems the first time he was able to tell her what he thought of her was by letter. He took a tour of Niagara Falls and he writes her a letter in which he says please pardon the liberty i take in pointing my pen toward your name for this evening i have taken in so much scenery that i cannot contain it all myself. Not exactly a love letter, but the first time hes telling her im thinking about you. She was even more than shy and reserved than he was, so neither of them were able to tell each other that they really felt quite strongly about each other. And so in 18954, he leaves ohio and decides to finish college at Williams College in williams town, massachusetts. Our new congressman don beyer went to Williams College. And we brought him a copy of this because she share the same alma mater. When he was at williams of course, he was the best student there. He became editor of the williams quarterly. And in two years at age 25, you because again he got a late start, he graduated from Williams College with the highest honors. Returns to western reserve to teach latin and greek to become a professor as well as other subjects. And one year later, selected to be president of the school. Youre going to keep laughing because its like he then realizes the school is deeply in debt, has no endowment, so he decides to become the chief fund raise, raises enough money so that the school is able to survive very well and chief financial viability. He also resumes his rather awkward courtship of a woman he called cret. Both unable to tell each other what they think, so one day she hands him her diary. And says just read this. And in the diary, its full of pages about how much she loves him. And so finally on november 11, 1858, the 27yearold James Garfield marries the 26yearold lucretia after an 11 year courtship. If the courtship was difficult, the beginning of the marriage was pretty much worse. They had great difficulty figuring out, okay, now that were living together, what do we do. As a result, it became not as a result, but it became even more difficult because he was never home. In the first five years of marriage, they spent less than five months together. Because of the civil war and because of everything else. And their separation, their difficulty of communicating with one another made it very difficult for them at home alone. Their first child, same name as james mother, they called her trot, she unfortunately dies at age 3 and they grieve separately instead of together. Its a difficult period. In 1864 when he was a congressman and she was in ohio, he thought he totally ruined their marriage because he had an affair with a young widow in new york named lucia calhoun. She was a reporter for the new york tribune. They had a month long affair. He felt guilty and confessed to his wife. And she said its time for us to figure out how to make this thing better. And from that moment, they fell passionately in love with each other. They decided that they were going to do the best they could together with each other and after that, maybe for the first time, they almost couldnt bear to be apart. He later wrote we waited a long time for this love to come, but it is here to stay. He later wrote lucretia became the love of my love. During one period away, he wrote you cant believe how much i miss you, how much i love you. I can hardly bear to be away from you. So from the moment that they really jumpstarted their marriage, they were this happily married couple. It took them a long time to get there, but once they were there, they were really there. They ultimately wind up having seven children. So they were there. Sadly two, trot and eddie passed away before neither reached their fourth birthday, but five did become mature adults and well talk about that a little bit later. The five who survived to adulthood all did extremely well because they were they had great parents. And particularly after he passed away, she did a great job of raising them afterwards. While he was president of western reserve, he decided this isnt enough to keep me busy, so he decided to study law. Youll keep laughing. So in 1859, he studies law and two years later, hes admitted to the ohio bar. Turns out he was an absolutely brilliant lawyer, but unfortunately for his legal career, the civil war came first and then he was elected to congress and so he had to put law aside. And so he didnt actually engage in the practice of law until right after the civil war. The first case he argues of course was in front of the Supreme Court. First time hed ever been in a courtroom. It was a case which is still one of the key cases taught in constitutional law today. It is a case on how to deal with civilian