Passed Presidents - # 20 – James A. Garfield

I am reading Candice Millard’s terrific story of the 20th president, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President. It is a riveting tale of a very different time and a man who might have been the best president we never had. In office only four months, he was shot on July 2nd and died, at age forty-nine, 132 years ago today in 1881.

James A. Garfield Tomb, Lake View Cemetery, 

Cleveland, OH (25 September 2006)

The assassin, Charles Guiteau, is often described as a disgruntled office-seeker. The reason I don’t write history or anything serious for public acceptance is that I would describe him as a delusional, deranged, grandiose whack-job. Because he once wrote a brief speech for ONE Republican event in New York...an event that included MANY speeches, he believed this one minor effort was solely responsible for Garfield winning the entire state and, therefore, the election. For this, he was convinced that he deserved to be appointed Minister to France. He believed God told him to kill Garfield and that the nation would rejoice at the deed. He even wrote a letter to Chester Arthur soliciting gratitude for what he did to make him president.

Regardless, if you read the full account of what happened after Garfield was shot, you’ll agree that the real assassins were his doctors. Although Guiteau was convicted and executed, it is easy to conclude the president’s death was caused by medical malpractice. Years before the shooting, the English surgeon, Joseph Lister had championed antiseptic methods that were widely accepted in Europe but disdained by the stubborn and arrogant American medical establishment. Doctors in this country didn’t believe in germs and couldn’t be bothered to wash their hands or clean their instruments. They actually thought the caked blood and pus on their surgical gowns was a sign of their proficiency.

Relief Sculpture on the outside of the Garfield Mausoleum

shows the president lying in state (25 September 2006)

The more I read about James A. Garfield, the more I wonder what he could have accomplished if he had two full terms in office instead of a few months...which were largely spent fending off patronage seekers. He was the last president who was born in a log cabin. Desperately poor as a youth, he never forgot the importance of hard work or the value of education. At his prep school, he could not afford tuition and worked on campus as a janitor and carpenter. After his first year, he learned his subjects so well, he was promoted to assistant professor.

He was an ordained minister and, after obtaining his college degree, embarked on an academic career and became a college president at age 26. When the Civil War began, he served for two years, rising to the rank of major general. With no prior military training, he led an outnumbered and out-gunned force to gain control of eastern Kentucky for the Union.

Under the dome of the Garfield Mausoleum (25 September 2006)

He served in the Ohio Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. He never actively sought or campaigned for any elected office. He was urged to serve and his reputation and promotion by others gained election victories. He went to the Republican convention in 1880 to nominate another Ohio candidate and the deadlocked delegates (after thirty six ballots) eventually chose him to run instead.

He was an ardent abolitionist. His inaugural address spoke of the need for racial equality. He appointed Frederic Douglass the Recorder of Deeds in Washington, D.C. and other African Americans to government positions. I’d like to think that if Garfield had been alive to govern longer, the Reconstruction period might have taken a different turn and the South would not have retrenched its despicable apartheid society with Jim Crow laws.

In the eleven weeks it took his doctors to kill him, Garfield endured repeated attempts by at least twelve physicians to find the bullet with their dirty fingers and instruments. He was given heavy doses of quinine because malaria was prevalent in the swampy Washington area. His diet, heavy with meat, potatoes and other rich foods, constantly upset his digestion. He vomited constantly and lost eighty pounds, gaining little through nutrition. After two months of medical torture in the sweltering Washington summer, he was moved to a beach community on the Jersey shore where he died.

After John Kennedy was assassinated, the nation rallied behind Lyndon Johnson to enact new civil rights laws. And, for the first time since the Civil War, shared shock and grief over the president’s death united North and South...for a while anyway.

Garfield’s vice president, Chester Arthur owed his entire career to patronage and corrupt New York machine politics. However, as president, he enacted the civil service reforms that finally ended the spoils system in Washington through which the assassin Guiteau and hundreds of others sought to reward themselves.

A statue of the president stands under the dome of his mausoleum (25 September 2006)

James A. Garfield

20th President; Served 1881

Born: November 19, 1831, Orange, OH

Died: September 19, 1881, Elberon, NJ

Grave Location: Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, OH

Dates Visited: 10/20/2001; 9/25/2006

The presidents from Lincoln to the end of the 19th century are a forgettable lot. It’s a shame that James Garfield is in that number because his life was cut short. I believe his could have been a memorable presidency that changed the course of history for the better.