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- [00:00]
Jeremy Suri
Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree. Zoe, this thing weighs a ton. Drew Ski, live with your legs, man. Santa. Santa, did you get my letter? He's talking to you britches. I'm not. Of course he did. Right, Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list. And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. Right, Mrs. Claus? I'm Mrs. Claus. Claus much younger sister. And AT T Mobile, there's no trade in needed when you switch, so you can keep your old phone or give it as a gift. And the best part, you can make the switch to T Mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes. Nice. My side of the tree is slipping.
- [00:38]
Martin
Kimber, the holidays are better. AT T Mobile, switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us.
- [00:45]
Jeremy Suri
With no trade in needed.
- [00:46]
Martin
And now T Mobile is available in U.S. cellular stores with sweet monthly bill.
- [00:50]
Jeremy Suri
Credits for well qualified customers plus tax.
- [00:51]
Martin
And $35 vice connection charge credit sentinel balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. 256 gigs, $830 eligible Ford in a.
- [00:56]
Jeremy Suri
New line, $100 plus a month plan with auto.
- [00:58]
Martin
Check out 15 minutes or less per line.
- [00:59]
Jeremy Suri
Visit t mobile.com Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments? When the killer's identity is about to be revealed during that perfect meditation flow on Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad free podcast episodes. So you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts. Ad free included with Prime.
- [01:35]
Martin
History. As it happens, it's June 1880 at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. After 35 consecutive ballots, the convention is deadlocked. As historian Jeremy Surrey writes in his book Civil War by Other Means, the former president, Ulysses S. Grant, had the most votes, but never enough to win the GOP nomination. So out of desperation, Grant's opponents came together behind an alternative Ohio's James Garfield.
- [02:14]
Jeremy Suri
Hurrah for James Garfield, the next President of the United States.
- [02:21]
Martin
Garfield's dramatic and unexpected rise to the White House is the subject of a hit Netflix series, Death by Lightning, which depicts Garfield as an upstanding citizen and public servant who is not seeking the presidency.
- [02:34]
Jeremy Suri
Hello, sir. It's a great honor to meet you. It was you, wasn't it? It was me, sir. I was very impressed by your speech. Oh, very kind. You do realize I'm not running. I do. My task, as I understood it, was to vote for the man most capable. I believe that to be you, sir. You mistake me. My support is for Sherman.
- [02:53]
Martin
After his stunning win in June, Garfield won the general election in November over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock. But his presidency lasted a mere 199 days.
- [03:04]
Jeremy Suri
You bet, Robert. You're Secretary of War now. You.
- [03:12]
Martin
A mentally ill, delusional patronage seeker named Charles Guiteau shot Garfield in the back at the Baltimore Potomac Railroad Station in Washington on July 2, 1881. Eighty agonizing days later, fatally infected with sepsis because his doctors did not sterilize their surgical tools or hands, James Garfield died. Guiteau was tried and convicted and hanged on June 30, 1882.
- [03:39]
Jeremy Suri
I'm so glad. Oh, glory hallelujah. Glory hallelu. I say that my part, death by.
- [03:50]
Martin
Lightning brings to life an overlooked yet critically important moment in American politics society. Just compare what you know about the 1880s to, say, the Revolutionary War or Civil War or the Great Depression in World War II. The series makes for entertaining television, but does it get the story right? Jeremy Suri teaches history at the LBJ School of Public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He co hosts this is Democracy podcast, and his newsletter is Democracy of Hope on Substack. And he is the author of the aforementioned Civil War by Other America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. Jeremy Suri, welcome back.
- [04:30]
Jeremy Suri
Good to be with you, Martin.
- [04:31]
Martin
A show about the 1880s about a minor presidential figure. Before we get into James Garfield, do you agree that the 1880s, the period after Reconstruction, before the start of the 20th century, is one that a lot of Americans don't know much about.
- [04:47]
Jeremy Suri
Absolutely. I certainly see that with students who have taken many years of high school history courses. They can tell you a lot about the Civil War, and then they can tell you a little bit about Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century, but they don't know much in between. And I think that's because it's not a pretty period. There aren't easy good guys and bad guys to point to heroes and villains. The presidential figures in particular are not larger than life. They don't amount to too much for a variety of reasons. In Garfield's case is because he was assassinated. And it's a period filled with corruption. It's a period filled with violence. So it's not pretty. And most people just skip over it.
- [05:29]
Martin
Yeah. What was the state of the country in 1880? What was national morale like? It seemed to be A transition period. I mean, there's always transitions going on in our country, right? A lot of people moving around, politics seemed to be in flux. What was going on?
- [05:44]
Jeremy Suri
Well, I mean, there is a sexy side to it, which is the Gilded Age, and that gets attention and always has from Mark Twain's time forward. And there's been a recent TV show on the Gilded Age, as there's been a TV show on James Garfield that we're going to talk about. So there was high morale for those who were making a lot of money. This was the time when New York City really became the empire city that we recognize. The time when wealthy New Yorkers became super wealthy, largely through investments in railways and other new corporations that were coming into existence at this time. So that was the high society part of it. But for many Americans, this was a time when they were transitioning from agriculture to industrial work, moving into factories. And it was not a pretty time. It's a period of massive immigration, which is a positive story. It's how many of our relatives came here. But immigrants did not come to the land of milk and honey. They came to an environment that was filled with organized corruption. That's what party bosses were in cities. And it was filled with prejudice and all sorts of limitations as well. So it was a time when many people were struggling, and that was part of the transition in the economy from an agrarian to an industrial economy and a westward settlement. And that made this a period not just of transition, a period of uncertainty and massive inequalities.
- [07:01]
Martin
In various experiences, corruption was the norm. We lament corruption today, but in those days, it was. It was everywhere. Right?
- [07:08]
Jeremy Suri
Well, so historians have written a lot about this. Corruption was evident. It was pervasive, in part because that's often how people made their living. So if you were a police officer, you were poorly paid, and you used your position to extract bribes from people. Many government officials did this as well. But there's also a positive side to corruption, as strange as that is to say, which is that many corrupt officials, they were corrupt in demanding things from people, but also providing services in return for those demands. So ethnic bosses in cities, I referred to this before. The Irish boss in New York City, the Italian boss, they would find new immigrants, help them get a job, whether they were qualified for that job or not. And in return, those immigrants would go and vote for them early and often. And so there was a corruption in the voting system, but those groups were getting service. Those immigrants were getting service. In the progressive period, when we move away from this in the early 20th century. Many of these groups feel they're not served by a less corrupt government that's not giving them jobs when they need jobs, for example.
- [08:12]
Martin
So you saw the show Death by Lightning, you liked it?
- [08:14]
Jeremy Suri
Oh yes. I mean anything that brings our attention to serious history. And that even though it's taking liberties, does a good job of capturing some of the moment, as I think it did. I think it's well done.
- [08:26]
Martin
It gets the big stuff more or less right in a. I mean it's got to be entertaining. It's only four parts, about a four. It could have been a four hour movie. Right. Although the dialogue is very modern.
- [08:37]
Jeremy Suri
That doesn't sound like the period. No, the dialogue is one of the weakest parts of it. But I think what is positive about it is, as you say, it gives you a feel for the period. It also captures the importance of James Garfield. It captures his life for us. He's an important figure in our history not because of what he does as president, but for how he becomes president. It captures the party debates of the times and it brings some of the other personalities to light as well.
- [09:01]
Martin
So in grade school history classes I remember the name William Henry Harrison for one reason only. He was president for 32 days. And I think when I was a kid we were taught incorrectly, as it turns out, that he died of pneumonia or a cold or something like that because he gave his inaugural address in a storm. But apparently he had typhoid, severe abdominal stress, fatigue or those were the symptoms of typhoid. He died from tainted drinking water of all things.
- [09:30]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah. Number not unusual in Washington D.C. it's true, not anymore.
- [09:35]
Martin
As a resident I can tell you that the water's fine now. Number two on the list, shortest presidencies, James Garfield. 199 days. The last 80 were in agony as he suffered from his surgeons. Not the bullet wound as much as the way they treated it before he became, and we have to be honest, a minor president through no fault of his own. Who is James Garfield?
- [09:59]
Jeremy Suri
So James Garfield was a minister, a self trained, self raised minister, teacher, Civil War veteran, congressman, and someone who in many ways represented a kind of Ohio Republican of this period. What was an Ohio Republican was someone who was from a relatively small community, a modest background, who did not like slavery, did not like the Democratic party, but didn't feel comfortable with the Whigs who were the big business part of what became the Republican Party. And so was part of what we might call the sort of small town Republican. And that's very much in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln.
- [10:39]
Martin
And he wins the nomination in the show by giving this rousing speech. He wins people over. He never intended to be president. He went to the convention to support his party and to urge it to reclaim its Lincolnian values. Is that right?
- [10:55]
Jeremy Suri
No, it's not entirely right. It encapsulates a much more complex story and I think the show producers expect you to know that he did give a speech on behalf of John Sherman, who was nominated as one of the Republican possible presidential candidates in 1880. That's not what got him nominated. Two things are missing in the show. First of all, Garfield did have ambition. And he went there not simply to support fellow Ohioan, but to make a name for himself. I don't think he thought he'd be nominated for president, but he thought he would. He'd had a future in the party. And second, the real reason he's chosen is because the party is deadlocked. Not because of the quality of his speech, but because the party is deadlocked between the New York wing of the party led by Roscoe Conklin. Senator Conklin, who's in the show, of course, is one of the villains, one of the corrupt villains, and the Ohio part of the party. These two parts of the party, the Midwest and the Northeast, are sort of. They cannot get enough votes for any one candidate from either to lead the party. And Garfield becomes the compromise candidate.
- [11:59]
Martin
You know, I didn't know until watching the show that U.S. grant could have been the president again.
- [12:04]
Jeremy Suri
It was very close. He almost won the nomination and he probably would have won the election. He was the most popular figure in the United States at the time because of his heroic work during the Civil War. He was of course, hated in the south, but that didn't matter. Granted, had an ambitious wife, of course, who he loved dearly. And he was out of money. He had not managed his money well, so he needed. He needed something. It's sad because it's not clear Grant really wanted to be president again, but he needed what he would get if he were president.
- [12:30]
Martin
From what I read in Richard White's big book on this period, Grant's wife wanted it more than Grant himself. I don't know if that's right.
- [12:37]
Jeremy Suri
I think so. It's hard to know. I think Grant needed the presidency because he had mismanaged his money.
- [12:43]
Martin
So we'll return to Garfield's short presidency in a moment, but you raised some points there. We can go back to the context here. The state of the country in 1880, because that's a big part of the show. It's rather interesting, the politicking, the behind the scenes, the Rutherford B. Hayes presidency from 1877 on a 1 term Republican president. From what I've read, and you wrote about this in your book Civil War by other Means, this is a fairly disastrous presidency, right?
- [13:10]
Jeremy Suri
Yes. And it's not really Hayes's fault. Hayes was also from Ohio and was also a good man, also self made and self trained. But Hayes was elected or he got to be president after the 1876 election where the country was so deeply divided it wasn't clear who had actually won the election. Samuel Tilden, the Democratic governor of New York actually had more total votes and there were disputed electoral votes in three states, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. And so in order to assume the presidency, Hayes and the Republican party had to agree to certain conditions with the Democrats. And one of those conditions was that the north would remove most of its force from the south and would allow Southerners to basically violate the Constitution. This hampered Hayes as president. It undermined his credibility, made it very difficult for him to lead and that's why he didn't run for reelection.
- [14:08]
Martin
Garfield's views on civil rights. We talked about transitions before. It sounds like the country is moving past a period where even Northerners were okay with federal military occupation of the south to protect black rights, that the country is moving past that. So by 1880, Garfield is where on this issue?
- [14:27]
Jeremy Suri
Well, so, so Garfield is. He's not a radical in the way that Benjamin Wade, another Ohioan, was. He's sort of where John Sherman, senator from Ohio was, which is to say he's a moderate who believes in civil rights and believes generally in enforcing civil rights. And he talked about that. But his priority is actually spending federal resources on westward sett and economic growth. And that's where the money is. And that's also what the New York faction of the party is pushing for. So he was not going to put the lion's share of government resources into enforcing civil rights, but he would have pushed for the enforcement where he could, where costs were low. The problem is that many Northerners had grown tired of spending money and making efforts in the South. They thought this was a losing game, that Southerners would continue to resist, the Confederates would continue to resist. And they believed the opportunities in the west were so much greater. So that's where New York Republicans were. They wanted to spend their money building railroads. Notice most of the railroads they build go east to west, not north to south. That's where the money was yeah.
- [15:28]
Martin
You quote Garfield in your book here on page 245. He pledged, once he becomes president, so far as my authority can lawfully extend, African Americans shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the Constitution and the laws. He called Southern efforts to deny voting rights crime. If in other hands it be high treason to compass the death of a king, it shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power and stifle its voice. But as president, it sounds like his hands were tied already on that one.
- [16:01]
Jeremy Suri
His hands were tied by his own party and by the interests of the public. And so he wasn't going to be able to expend the effort Ulysses Grant had expended in his first term, for example, sending more military force into the south to crush the Ku Klux Klan. And the legal structure for that is actually what we've used today after January 6th. But Grant put a lot of effort into that that Garfield couldn't. He didn't have the resources nor the support in his own party.
- [16:28]
Martin
So Death by Lightning is really good on the personalities of the age. Even though maybe the dialogue is a little too modern with all the F bombs and cursing and kind of modern idiom, if you will. They show the infighting between these different wings in the Republican party saying that the party had lost its Lincolnian way. Before I ask you about the stalwarts and the half breeds, is that right? That the party had kind of lost its Lincolnian way?
- [16:54]
Jeremy Suri
It had, yes.
- [16:55]
Martin
But times had changed too.
- [16:57]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah. It's not clear how long it had a Lincolnian way. It had a Lincolnian way when Lincoln was president and that's in part because of the Civil War. It was in part because of the imperative after 1863 to appeal to African Americans as soldiers in the Union army and then as the key actors in many ways during Reconstruction. And when Grant is elected in 1868, it's largely with African American votes in the South. Lincoln had never won an electoral vote in the South. Grant wins many. So that was a key part of the party for a while. But then in part because as we just talked about, Unionists from the north and the Republican Party had other interests and they didn't really want African Americans in their part of the country to vote. The party turns away from that issue. It's not clear Lincoln would have been able to resist that from happening.
- [17:47]
Martin
Roscoe Conkling is one of the great actors or one of the great personalities depicted in the show. He is the leader of the so called stalwarts and the way he's shown in Death by Lighting is that his preoccupation is making money, machine politics, keeping control of the pocket padding. Positions like, like Chester Arthur, the one time head of the port of New York City made a salary equivalent to the President of the United States, who are the stalwarts.
- [18:15]
Jeremy Suri
So the stalwarts are New York Republicans who believe that the party should emphasize capitalism above civil rights, economic expansion, particularly in the west, above dealing with Reconstruction. They support tariffs because tariffs provide revenue and tariffs protect industry. And they support government grants of land and other resources to businesses, particularly to railroads. That's where most of these railroads are built, on government land. So they're actually for big government and they're actually for tariffs. That should surprise us a little bit. But they see that as essential to economic development and they see quite frankly what's happening in the deep south as a distraction to be avoided.
- [18:58]
Martin
And Garfield is more on the side of the half breeds, it seems. I mean Blaine was more his guy.
- [19:03]
Jeremy Suri
So the half breeds are mostly Midwestern though. Blaine is from Maine, but they are mostly Midwestern Republicans who have more of a direct tie to Lincoln and they're from Illinois, Ohio, places like that. And they are skeptical of the rich New York based corporations. There are some in Chicago too, so they're skeptical of those as well. They also have some connections to them, but they emphasize much more what we might call the small town values of the Republican party. They want a party that supports small shopkeepers, they want a party that provides resources for them. And so they want to see less acquisition of, of wealth and concentration of wealth in New York, but they also want to see civil rights in the south. But they don't really make that a priority either.
- [19:46]
Martin
In his book the Republic for which It Stands, Richard White, part of the Oxford History of the United States, he starts one of his chapters which is titled Years of violence. In 1876-77, the country trembled and fractured. Only a decade after the defeat of the Confederacy, a political crisis led sobermen to talk of renewed civil war. While class divisions, long regarded as alien to the free labor system became so deep and wide people drew parallels to the Paris Commune. We discussed this a little bit before the state of the country and corruption as well. Was that Garfield's priority? I mean, he was only in office for a short time, but to do something about the patronage system that led to so much corruption.
- [20:31]
Jeremy Suri
Yes, the half breeds did not like the patronage system because the patronage system was dominated by the established wealthy parts of the Party, though there were patronage positions for Ohioans as well. And all it did was allow for more concentration of wealth. And the classic example of this you mentioned, and it's a central part of the show, is Chester Arthur and the New York Custom House, which was one of the most lucrative patronage positions you could get because you could skim off some of the products that were brought in and you could get bribes. The second most lucrative position was the New Orleans Custom House. So the half breeds were committed to trying to break the grip that particularly New York Republicans and others had on these lucrative positions. And there's a wonderful moment in the show where Garfield says he can't get rid of Arthur because Arthur knows where all the money is. So he needs him there so Arthur can help him find the money that's being skimmed off in the New York Custom House. So this was about moving resources to the other part of the party from the people who dominated those resources.
- [21:37]
Martin
Nick Offerman plays Chester Arthur. He's like a street enforcer. Was that true? He's beating up people now?
- [21:44]
Jeremy Suri
No, it's overstated. It's overstated. Arthur was a big guy and he was known to intimidate people, but he was not a mafia tough in the way. In the way they make him out. He was an operator.
- [21:55]
Martin
He was an operator, but not interested in being president.
- [21:59]
Jeremy Suri
As you pointed out already, he had a very lucrative thing going and his salary was only a small portion of his income. Why would you want to give that up? And he didn't really have a political program. I mean, he was an operative guy. He became vice president as the show shows because when Conklin couldn't get his guy Grant in as presidential nominee, he wanted his guy in as vice president.
- [22:19]
Martin
Shea Wiggum plays Roscoe Conkling. Matthew McFadden plays Charles Guiteau. We'll get to that in a second. Michael Shannon plays James Garfield, who is depicted as an upstanding citizen, incorruptible Delta hand he really didn't want. He's president now and he's going to try to do something about corruption. There's something called fee based government in those days. What was fee based government?
- [22:44]
Jeremy Suri
Fee based government was where you paid the government to do things for you. So the most evident part of this is paying the police to protect your store or paying the police to protect your neighborhood. And this was quite common in part because government was poorly resourced.
- [23:00]
Martin
Yeah, I mean, why were usually we pay taxes for that nowadays? Why do you have to pay a fee for everything?
- [23:05]
Jeremy Suri
Well, so there Were no income taxes. This is really important. There was an income tax for a short while in the Union during the Civil War, but in general there was no income tax. Government revenue came from customs, it came from tariffs, that was the main source, and from the sale of public lands. So government was often strapped for cash. There were times as well when government had a surplus. Government surpluses in the late 19th century were usually not allocated for local governing issues. So you would quite commonly pay for security from the public security forces.
- [23:36]
Martin
So the Pendleton act, that was civil service reform. How important was Garfield into getting that passed? Because I believe it was passed after.
- [23:45]
Jeremy Suri
His death and signed by Chester Arthur. That's correct. The Pendleton act was designed to reduce the amount of patronage and to create instead a merit based civil service. It began by creating new merit positions. So as you go into the 20th century, you have a kind of hybrid government. You have the government we've just been talking about with lots of patronage, and you have new positions or old positions that are being converted into merit civil service positions. So a good example of this is the foreign service. We have a more professional foreign service after the Pendleton Act, A more professional foreign service with a foreign service exam. We all take that for granted today. That was not the case before. The Pendleton act creates a test. It creates certain standards. You had illiterate people in government jobs before the act is signed by Chester Arthur. It has limited effect at first. So people like my friend historian Richard White criticize it for not doing very much, but I slightly disagree because it sets us on a train toward a real discussion of what a merit based civil service should be. Under President Benjamin Harrison, that becomes a big issue. And there's a civil Service commission that a young Theodore Roosevelt serves on, and that plays a very big role in the beginnings of what we might call progressivism, which is government by expertise, not by patronage.
- [25:01]
Martin
You had to start somewhere and then you can compromise up. So this is a good place to transition to our talk about Charles Guiteau, because under the patronage system, people like him and all these others would crowd into the White House. In those days, you would go and try to meet the president or somebody else right there in the White House. Was that realistic as it was depicted in the show?
- [25:22]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah. So in the film, there's a, you know, there's a foyer room and they're crowded in. That's a little overstated, but it is what would happen. Lincoln also lamented this. He said he would have days where there were lines of people waiting outside his door and there's no Oval Office. So they're in the residence waiting outside his door to ask for a job of one kind or another. And Lincoln famously said he had too many round pegs and too many square holes. He couldn't fit the right people in the right places. So this is quite common. And Garfield was not the first president to be frustrated by this.
- [25:54]
Martin
Yeah, Charles Guiteau, he seemed to be truly mentally ill. Not to let him off the hook for what he did, but if he were around today, he'd be probably diagnosed with some kind of mental illness. He was delusional. He thought God chose him. Tell us a little bit about his background and why he was so bent on trying to get a government job.
- [26:12]
Jeremy Suri
Well, Guiteau had delusions of grandeur. He had all kinds of problems understanding his place. He failed at many things. He tried to be a lawyer, he tried to be a newspaper man. He kept failing because not only did he believe he was great, but he didn't do the work to develop the skills to actually succeed in one place or another. And then he had personal oddities that alienated people. And so he was a never do well who had connections and wasn't the one thing he could do was approach people and pretend he knew them and pretend he knew someone else. And so he would linger around power. He was a hanger on. He was a hanger on, you know, the kid at the lunch table who's not really friends with anyone but just staying around there. And he convinced himself that he had helped Garfield get elected. He hadn't. And he convinced himself that once he talked to Garfield, Garfield would give him a job. When Garfield didn't, after talking to him briefly, then he was convinced that if he killed Garfield, Arthur would give him a job. And that's what happened.
- [27:08]
Martin
Yeah, that he'd be forgiven for assassinating the President of the United States. He got Arthur.
- [27:13]
Jeremy Suri
He thought he was a hero. He thought he was a hero.
- [27:14]
Martin
Got Garfield out of the way. Now the Conklin people rushed to my assistance. Obviously delusional. And for him to not get a job in those days when, as you said, anyone could get a patronage job, qualifications weren't. Weren't the thing. It was connections, you know, physically. In those days, you could be a hanger on insofar as there wasn't security around people. And the show depicts Guiteau showing up in all these different places where he knows there are senators or diplomats or the President himself. He will approach these people and say, hey, Senator. So. And Senator Conklin, whoever, right? You remember me? And he'll go into his Spiel and within 10, 15, 20 seconds, the recipients, you could tell the expression on their face. This guy's a con artist. Who the hell is this guy?
- [28:01]
Jeremy Suri
Right, that exists today. I mean there are people. I was just at some holiday parties here in Austin and there are hangers on around, you know, state government too. There are all kinds of people looking to, you know, live off the fat of government in one way or another. That's not a new phenomenon. It was a little easier to get close to someone then, but. But here's the thing. Guiteau in that sense is the pattern of an assassin. That's often who these people are. Right. They're hangers on of one kind or another who then get frustrated and the.
- [28:33]
Martin
Assassination scene is accurate. Who walks right up into the train station, shoots the President in the back.
- [28:39]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah. Ye. Now we have to remember that Lincoln was the first president assassinated. People thought about this then, but they really didn't think it would happen again. That was supposed to be a strange thing that happened with John Wilkes Booth, who also had his mental issues, which I've written about, and the end of the Civil War. Right. So they didn't expect this. The other thing about these hangers on is they always seem pathetic. So you don't think they're actually really threatening until they do something like this. I think Guiteau surprised himself that he was able to carry this forward.
- [29:09]
Martin
You know, the trial is not in.
- [29:10]
Jeremy Suri
The show and there's a whole made up conversation between him and Lucretia, Garfield's wife, which doesn't occur. It is true, Garfield was very close to Lucretia, his wife. And his wife was an important political advisor to him. That is true. And many commented on her intelligence and her involvement. But the conversation in the show between Guiteau and her where she says, I will make sure history forgets you. That never happens.
- [29:33]
Martin
Yeah. She shows up in the jailhouse on the eve of when he's gonna be hanged. You know, it was only a four part series, so maybe doing the trial would have been a lot. Apparently the trial was a sensation at the time Guiteau was hanged. The jury rejected his insanity defense. But as for Garfield, talk about injustice, his doctors killed him and this is well depicted in the program. Yes, they did not believe people handling him at the time. They rejected the new medicine about sanitation or sterilization.
- [30:03]
Jeremy Suri
He died not from the bullet, similar to Theodore Roosevelt, who was also shot. The bullet went into his body, it caused trauma, but it did not actually kill him. What killed Garfield were the infections that he received in particular from Dr. Bliss, this civil War era doctor who was widely respected but behind the times. And stubborn Bliss put his dirty hands into the president multiple times, and the president developed sepsis and died from that. Infections occur all the time. We all know people who've gone to the hospital for one ailment and then get an infection there, but then you have to treat the infection. And Dr. Bliss did not treat the infection nor listen to other doctors who were giving him advice on how to treat the infection.
- [30:48]
Martin
And Garfield suffered for 80 days like this.
- [30:51]
Jeremy Suri
Terrible. It's terrible. Not only did he die unnecessarily, he was in agony and the country was in agony because this was chronicled. This is also not shown in the show, but this was chronicled in newspapers and others. And then Dr. Douglas, at the trial of Guiteau, tried to rehabilitate himself by claiming he hadn't made mistakes and then wrote a memoir. So there's a lesson here about not listening to one old expert on issues of this kind. If there had been second and third opinions taken seriously, things could have been different. There were plenty of people who were offering solutions that would have saved Garfield's life.
- [31:25]
Martin
There's a scene in the movie where a doctor says, you got to sterilize the tools, and Dr. Bliss isn't interested.
- [31:32]
Jeremy Suri
There were plenty of doctors with experience who knew from the Civil War and elsewhere that oftentimes getting the bullet out is more dangerous than leaving it in.
- [31:39]
Martin
Yeah, well, Andrew Jackson had a couple bullets in him.
- [31:41]
Jeremy Suri
That's exactly right.
- [31:42]
Martin
The entire time he was president, he was known to be able to take a bullet. And what a tough sob. Andrew Jackson. A couple more things here. Why does James Garfield matter? As I mentioned, a minor president through no fault of his own, a TV show dedicated to him because of Candice Millard's very popular book. But what do we take away from James Garfield? What's his legacy?
- [32:05]
Jeremy Suri
Well, I think one thing is that there maybe was an alternative. He was different from where the Republican Party goes with Chester Arthur and then the Democrats win after that with Grover Cleveland. So maybe there was a more Lincolnian or partial Lincolnian route where he would have at least done a little more and we would have not gone into the terrible period of Jim Cr. Second. I think what really makes the show attractive is it's the tragedy of a good man. He's another Lincoln in this sense. Right. It makes us think what we want to think today. Martin. Right. That good men can still succeed at politics, and it might end tragically, as it also did for Lincoln, but they can still succeed.
- [32:44]
Martin
Yeah. I mean, TV shows have a. Have a way of heroicizing or idealizing people, but it seemed like Garfield really was.
- [32:52]
Jeremy Suri
Yes, yeah, yeah, he was. He was an uncorrupt man in a corrupt time. And that's what we need to remember. Our times are filled with certain trends, but those don't cover everyone. We're living in a time now that's violent and corrupt. But you and I know many people who are good people who are not violent and not corrupt. And I know people in Congress now who are good members of Congress on both sides of the party. They're not the leaders of their parties, but they're good people there. We need to remember that. They matter.
- [33:19]
Martin
Yeah. I was gonna ask you final thing. The relevance of that period to today. I know it's easy to always draw parallels between the President and some past period to make a point, but we're living in unbelievably corrupt times when it comes to the Trump administration now. And it is tolerated, it seems, by.
- [33:35]
Jeremy Suri
A lot of people, but it doesn't have to be. I think that's another reason the show is popular. Right. Individuals can still make a difference. You know, 10 years ago, Martin, most of us, as historians, were saying, you know, we've overvalued individuals. We should focus more on structural causes and things like that. And of course, structure matters. But if anything, the last few years have reminded us how important individuals are. Our country would be different today if Donald Trump were not president. And our country would have been different in 1881, 1882. Not perfect, but it would have been different if Garfield had lived. And so individuals matter. And it's a good reminder to us and those who are depressed maybe about where the country is today. It can change. Elections still matter. Right. And those who love where the country is today, it can change. Elections still matter.
- [34:24]
Martin
On the next episode of History As It Happens, it is a bonus episode. What is neoliberalism? The historians Daniel Besner and Phil Magness will be here to discuss and debate what is neoliberalism? When is that that term actually mean, and how do we apply it to this right populist age? If you're already a subscriber, you'll be able to listen to the entire episode. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can change that by going to history as it happens.Supercast.com or tap. Subscribe now. In the show notes, Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out.
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Jeremy Suri
Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now.
- [35:13]
Martin
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Jeremy Suri
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Martin
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