The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service

Summary

Throughline: The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service

Introduction: The Assassination of President James A. Garfield Released on April 24, 2025, NPR’s Throughline delves into the pivotal moment in American history when President James A. Garfield was assassinated, and how this tragic event catalyzed profound changes in the U.S. civil service. Hosts Ramtin Arablouei and Rend Abdelfattah guide listeners through the intricate interplay of personal ambition, political corruption, and the quest for reform that reshaped the federal government.

1. The Fateful Day: Garfield’s Assassination On July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac train station in Washington, D.C. As detailed early in the episode, “Garfield walks into the train station and Guiteau almost immediately steps out of the shadows with a pistol in his hand” (00:56). Charles Guiteau, a mentally unstable office seeker, fired two shots, one of which lodged below Garfield's pancreas. The immediate chaos is vividly portrayed: “Garfield is lying on this floor in a train station with two bullet holes in him” (01:51).

2. Garfield’s Early Life and Rise to Prominence Garfield’s journey from humble beginnings to the presidency is a testament to his resilience and intellect. Born into extreme poverty in a log cabin in Ohio, Garfield overcame significant hardships, including near-drownings and a bout with malaria, to pursue education fervently. “For him, education was his path out of poverty and into a new life” (12:02), notes guest Candace Millard, author of Destiny of the Republic. His academic brilliance led him to become a professor and eventually the college’s president, showcasing his dedication and intellectual prowess.

3. The Political Landscape: The Spoils System The episode meticulously explains the "spoils system," a practice where federal jobs were distributed based on political loyalty rather than merit. This system was deeply entrenched within the Republican Party, leading to widespread corruption and inefficiency. Tom Mack, a history professor, articulates, “The Spoils system really is as old as democracy in this country” (21:36). The convention of 1880 became a battleground between the “stalwarts,” defenders of the spoils system, and the “half breeds,” who advocated for reform.

4. The 1880 Republican Convention: An Unexpected Nomination At the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago, expectations were high for Ulysses S. Grant to secure the nomination. However, through a series of unexpected votes and strategic maneuvering, James Garfield was thrust into the spotlight. During a nominating address for John Sherman, Garfield’s thoughtful speech inadvertently garnered support: “Without any... over the storm and passion that calm level of public opinion...” (27:08). The momentum shifted rapidly, and despite his reluctance, Garfield emerged as the Republican nominee, much to the dismay of stalwarts like Roscoe Conkling.

5. Garfield’s Presidency and the Struggle for Reform Once elected, Garfield sought to address the rampant corruption within the civil service. His inauguration speech emphasized the need for civil service reform: “The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law” (34:00). However, his efforts were constantly undermined by Conkling and his loyalists, who wielded significant power within the party. The pervasive practice of handling job appointments directly from the White House created an environment ripe for favoritism and inefficiency, causing immense frustration for Garfield.

6. Charles Guiteau: A Symptom of a Broken System Charles Guiteau epitomized the destructive consequences of the spoils system. Desperate for a government position he felt he was owed, Guiteau’s obsession led him to assassinate Garfield. “He had campaigns for Garfield in 1880, which he felt entitled him to a big government job” (36:37). His actions were not merely personal vendetta but a direct response to a flawed system that valued loyalty over competence. Guiteau’s assassination thus highlighted the urgent need for systemic change.

7. The Aftermath: Chester A. Arthur and the Pendleton Act Following Garfield’s death, Vice President Chester A. Arthur assumed the presidency. Contrary to expectations, Arthur, influenced by persistent correspondence from Julia Sand—a politically astute woman—embraced civil service reform. Sand’s letters implored Arthur to transcend machine politics and champion merit-based appointments: “Do what is more difficult and more brave. Reform” (42:47). Arthur’s transformation culminated in the support and eventual passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which established competitive examinations for federal jobs and marked the beginning of a professional civil service.

Notable Quotes:

• “Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning. And it's best not to worry about either.” – Candace Millard (03:12)

• “Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained... If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery.” – Candace Millard (18:23)

• “The Spoils system is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the idea that whoever wins the presidency should be able to fill all those federal government jobs with people who are loyal to the winner.” – Tom Mack (21:32)

• “But making a man president cannot change him.” – Julia Sand (40:50)

Conclusion: A Legacy of Reform Throughline eloquently illustrates how a single act of madness intertwined with systemic flaws can ignite transformative change. The assassination of President Garfield, while tragic, served as a catalyst for the Pendleton Act and the establishment of a merit-based civil service system that sought to eliminate the corruption endemic in the spoils system. This episode underscores the delicate balance between personal ambition and institutional integrity, highlighting how individual actions can reverberate through history to forge a more equitable governmental framework.

Further Insights: The hosts emphasize that Garfield’s legacy extends beyond his tragic end—a reminder that reforms often require both visionary leadership and the courage to confront entrenched interests. Chester Arthur’s unexpected commitment to civil service reform serves as a testament to the power of persistence and the impact of advocacy, even from unlikely sources.

Listening Experience: For those who have not listened to the episode, Throughline offers a compelling narrative that seamlessly blends historical events with personal stories, making the complex political dynamics of the late 19th century accessible and engaging. The inclusion of firsthand quotes and expert analysis enriches the listener’s understanding of how Garfield’s assassination ultimately paved the way for a more professional and efficient federal government.

Transcript

[Dana Farber]

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

July 2, 1881. President James A. Garfield is about to board a train at the Baltimore and.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Potomac train station, which is in Washington.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

D.C. he's headed to New Jersey with his sons to visit his ailing wife.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

It's about 9:30am and what he doesn't know is there's a man named Charles Guiteau. Charles Guiteau, who has been stalking him for weeks.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield has no security detail with him.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Garfield walks into the train station and Guiteau almost immediately steps out of the.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Shadows with a pistol in his hand. He fires two shots at President Garfield.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He shoots him once in his arm and then he shoots him again in his back.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

One bullet gets lodged just below his pancreas.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

There's this sort of moment of shock and silence and then just the entire station just erupts and screams. Garfield is lying on this floor in a train station with two bullet holes in him.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

A group of men rush to President Garfield and grab him and they get.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

This old horse hair and hay mattress and they put Garfield on it and they take him to a room above the train station.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He's still alive. And a parade of local doctors arrive to look at his wounds.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Every doctor who comes sticks unsterilized fingers and instruments in his back again and again. I mean, it's incredibly like unbelievably painful, but also obviously introducing so much infection.

[Candace Millard]

Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning. And it's best not to worry about either. James A. Garfield.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Charles Guiteau, the man who shot President Garfield, is arrested right away at the train station.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He's immediately taken to a prison and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He wastes no time in telling police why he did it.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He believed that God had chosen him for a great purpose. So he thinks that he helped Garfield win the White House.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Guiteau had delivered a single speech for Garfield's campaign. And when Garfield won the presidency, he believed he was owed a major government job in return. When he didn't receive it, he thought killing Garfield would make things right.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was mentally ill and he was delusional. He believed very happily and vigorously in the spoils system.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The spoils system, that's referring to the way federal government jobs were filled at that time. Basically when a new president would come into office, he'd dole out plum jobs, everything from postmen to cabinet secretaries as a reward to people in his party, to his supporters, his loyalists. It was a controversial issue at the center of American politics even then. And over the next several months, after President Garfield's shooting in 1881, Americans would read the newspapers every day to find out the latest about his condition and the trial of Charles Guiteau. The fallout of the shooting on that hot day in July would forever change the very nature of the US Government. It's a story of redemption and corruption and how one event can bring the best and worst out of politicians. Ultimately, this is a story about the origins of the modern federal civil service, an institution that's today being fought over again.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

I'm Rend Abdelfattah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And I'm Ramtin Arablouei on this episode of throughline from NPR, the Long Shadow of 1881. This is Oladipuko Ishola from Maryland, USA. You are listening to True Line from NPR. About.

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[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

The wilds of Ohio.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Around 20 miles from Cleveland, a fire is burning. The year is 1833. It's three years since President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal act, aiming to force the last native populations from the state. Ohio is still largely undeveloped and this part of the state is full of trees. The thickly wooded forest is the perfect tender for the fire that is racing towards a lone log cabin, the Garfield family's home. The outcome Seems inevitable. But Abram Garfield, the father of James Garfield, the country's future president, won't let everything he saved and fought for disappear just like that. All day, through the flames and smoke, he and his brothers fight the fire. Somehow he does it. The cabin and his family survive. But days later, Abram gets very ill. On the brink of death, he turns to his wife, Eliza, and says, I have planted four saplings in these woods. I leave them in your career. Four saplings. His children. James Garfield was the youngest.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was born into extreme poverty. He didn't have shoes until he was.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Candace Millard.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

She's the author of Destiny of the.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Republic, which is all about the country's 20th president, James Garfield.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

This guy was extraordinary, and he's been completely forgotten.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Raised by a widowed mother in Ohio.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was our last president. Born in a log cabin, Garfield grew.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Up surrounded by trees. And his thoughts were nowhere near the machinations of the White House. Instead, he dreamt of the sea.

[Candace Millard]

I remember especially the Pirate's own book, which became a sort of bible or general authority with me. A tropical climate is suited to a roving life, and liquor, as well as dissolute women being in great abundance to. To gratify him during his hours of relaxation, make this a congenial region for the lawless.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

As an adult, Garfield recalled how reading about the ocean pirates and sailors fueled his nautical ambitions.

[Candace Millard]

I formed the determination to become a sailor.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Although Garfield didn't even know how to swim, he set off at the age of 16. Against the protests of his mother, who wanted him to get an education, he started working in Lake Erie's canals.

[Candace Millard]

I knew almost nothing about the water except what I had read. The consequence was I fell into the canal just 14 times and had 14 almost miraculous escapes from drowning.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

After so many near drownings and then a terrible case of malaria, Garfield headed back home, where his mother and brother had been hatching a plan to get Garfield back in school.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

They saved a little bit of money. They put together $17 to be able to send him to college.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So he enrolls at a local school. But it's expensive. He finished the term with just six.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Cents to his name to help pay his tuition, he was a carpenter and a janitor.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But he's brilliant. And just a few years after graduating, he returns to his local college.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

They made him a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And not long after that, he became the college's president and. Okay, I know at this point you're probably thinking this sounds a lot like the plot Line for good will hunting. But this is real. This is really how it goes down for James Garfield.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem, so he was also this amazing mathematician.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

For him, education was his path out of poverty and into a new life.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was an incredible classicist. He knew Greek, he knew Latin, he knew huge sections of the aeneid by heart in Latin, he was just off the charts brilliant. But honestly, what was more more interesting to me and more important to me about Garfield than his brain was his heart.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield grew up in a devout Christian family, and that definitely influenced the way he saw the world.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He belonged to the disciples of Christ. That was very informative. In his life, I think in their family, they really took seriously the idea of that you try to do the best not just for yourself and for your family, but for those around you and for civilization and for history.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So when it came to the country's fierce debate over the ongoing system of slavery, Garfield had only one answer.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was a fierce abolitionist.

[Candace Millard]

At such hours as this, I feel like throwing the whole current of my life into the work of opposing this great evil.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was this incredibly powerful speaker, not shy and always happy to stand up for what he believed in.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield, who by this point had already become a lawyer and entered state politics, had won a seat in the Ohio senate.

[Candace Millard]

So long must this circle of states be undivided, the bonds of union unbroken.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And after the confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861, the war will soon.

[Candace Millard]

Assume the shape of slavery and freedom. The world will understand it, and I believe the final outcome will redound to the good of humanity.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield knew war was probably inevitable.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was never not going to fight in a war that at its heart was about abolishing slavery.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So he joins the fight.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He's not a trained military strategist, but again, he is a thinker.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

They make him the leader of the 42nd Regiment, which is tasked with fighting back the Confederate army in Kentucky. It's a key state to win, and everyone knows it. President Abraham Lincoln hails from there and is widely reported to have said, I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky. It all comes down to one battle, the battle of middle creek.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was completely outnumbered by the confederates.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So Garfield tries something bold.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He divided his regiment into three and had them come at them from three different directions.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The confederates felt like they were being swarmed on all sides.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He tricked them, and it worked. They thought that they were completely overwhelmed when the opposite was true.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

After the fighting ended, Garfield went out and surveyed the aftermath and he saw.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

A lot of young men spread out on a field. And at first it looks as if they're sleeping. And then, you know, he realizes that they're dead. And the enormity of that, you know, stayed with him for the rest of his life.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Ten months later, after his decisive win at the Battle of Middle Creek, Garfield was elected to the US Congress as a representative of Ohio. He had decided to keep fighting instead of reporting to D.C. but then Abraham.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Lincoln asks him to come back to serve because he said he needed him.

[Candace Millard]

I did this with great regret, for I had hoped to not leave the field till every insurgent state had returned to its allegiance. But the President told me he dared not risk a single vote in the House.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Lincoln knew that he needed men like Garfield to make sure important, important legislation was passed. And Garfield soon found out that he could achieve more for the Union from his seat in Congress than at the helm of a battle.

[Candace Millard]

What legislation is necessary to secure equal justice to all loyal persons without regard to color? At the nation's capital during the war.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He introduced a resolution that allowed black people to walk freely through Washington D.C. with, without any sort of pass or documentation, something that had long been required to prove their status as freedmen.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Yeah, he was a radical Republican. I mean, he was very much involved in the Freedmen's Bureau and he has not great things to say about Lincoln. He was frustrated with them because, you know, Lincoln's trying to keep everything together, but he's angry and he felt that Lincoln had kind of dragged his feet and taken too long to release the emancipation proclamation.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot and killed.

[Candace Millard]

I am sick at heart and it feel to be almost like sacrilege to talk of money or business.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Now, despite their differences, Garfield was devastated and more determined than ever to fight for black Americans right to vote.

[Candace Millard]

Let us not commit ourselves to the senseless and absurd dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And as always, people were captivated by him.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was tall, he was strong, he was handsome. You know, he had this bigger than life personality. You know, he was just irresistible.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And they listened.

[Candace Millard]

Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained, of not being bought and sold, branded and scourged? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Coming up, Garfield's rising star puts him on an unlikely path to the White House. Even though it's the last thing he wants. My name is Leigh Ann Spagnola. I'm in Dallas, Texas and you're listening to Ferli. Thank you guys for this podcast. I'm smarter because of it.

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

Part 2 Trickle becomes stream On June 2, 1880, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, met in Chicago for its national convention.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

There are 15,000 people there.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

They're going to choose the Republican ticket for the 1880 presidential election.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Everyone expects that Ulysses S. Grant is going to get this nomination.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Ulysses S. Grant was the Union's commanding general during the Civil War, a national hero who served two terms as president from 1869 to 1877.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He's hoping for a third term.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Back then, there were no limits on how many times you could be president.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He's obviously still beloved, even though his past administrations have been sort of riddled with corruption.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Corruption that partly came from the spoils system.

[Tom Mack]

The Spoils system really is as old as democracy in this country.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Spoils system is exactly what it sounds like. It's the idea that whoever wins the presidency should be able to fill all those federal government jobs with people who are loyal to the winner goes the spoils. So this meant that jobs like postman or tax collector weren't filled by the most qualified person, but instead the job was given out like a perk to party loyalists. It had been in use for decades at all levels of government. But when the Civil War happened, suddenly the federal government grew exponentially to support the war effort, and there were a lot of jobs to be filled via the Spoils system. The Republican Party, which controlled every branch of government at that point, used it to their advantage. But when the war ended, many people started to call the system out as corrupt and unfair.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

In fact, within the Republican Party, you had this deep divide. There were the stalwarts, stalwarts who believed that the spoils system was great and it made a lot of sense, and they needed to protect it, to keep it going.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And then there were what some people.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Derisively called half breeds, who believed that it was essentially corrupt and needed to be reformed.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The term half breed was an insulting way to describe someone of mixed native and European descent. And the stalwarts used that term to insult Republicans who criticized the spoils system, meaning they were only half Republican.

[Tom Mack]

It's hard for Americans in the 21st century to understand how civil service reform could be like, the number one issue at the top of the national agenda, but it was in the late 1870s. This is Scott Greenberger.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He's the executive editor of a news site called Stateline and has written extensively about this time in American politics. He says going into the 1880 election.

[Tom Mack]

The spoil system was the major issue.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So at the convention, Ulysses S. Grant was the candidate for the stalwart faction. His opponent, the candidate for the spoil system reformers, was a guy named John.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Sherman, and he desperately wanted this nomination.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The custom at that time was for candidates to not attend the convention and to have someone else give a speech on their behalf, making the argument for why they would be the right candidate. No one wanted to appear too thirsty for the presidency.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

So Grant sends sort of the king of the stalwarts. He was this man called Roscoe Conkling.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Roscoe Conkling.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

And he was a senior senator from New York.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He also had control over the New York City Custom House, where most of America's imported goods came in, where custom taxes on those goods were collected. They were a form of tariffs, so.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Bringing in tons of money. He has a lot of power, and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He used that power to make sure Republicans stayed in power.

[Tom Mack]

He is very pro reconstruction and pro civil rights, but he is also a great defender of the spoil system. And his view, when a new party comes in, whoever won the election, the president should be able to put his people in the position. So in that sense, it's not unlike the argument. In fact, it's the same argument that the Trump administration is making now, which is that, okay, the people elected me, and my job as the executive is to implement the policies that I've been elected to implement, and therefore, why shouldn't my people be in those positions?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Conkling argued that the spoil system was the most realistic way for the Republican party to achieve its goals like civil rights for black Americans, expanding access to education and building more railroads.

[Tom Mack]

He said, people disparage our political machine but a machine is just something that gets things done.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So that's the person giving this speech for the stalwarts Conkling and Sherman, the half breeds faction candidate. The person he chooses to give his speech is none other than James A. Garfield.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

So he goes to Chicago and he's up all night. The night before.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

On the fourth day of the convention, Saturday speeches were given on behalf of each king.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Candidate Roscoe Conklin takes the stage and it was fantastic.

[Candace Millard]

I rise in behalf of the state of New York to propose a nomination with which the country and the Republican party can grandly win.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Just fantastic.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Conkling was in his bag. Fiery and direct. He presented Grant as a noble war.

[Candace Millard]

Hero, never defeated in war or at peace. His name is the most illustrious born by any living man.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

And he's got everybody completely worked up and they're pounding their fists and they're stomping their feet and they're cheering.

[Candace Millard]

He never betrayed a cause or a friend and the people will never betray or desert him.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The, the crowd is going nuts.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

They are cheering for Grant. Grant. Grant. Grant.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Conkling finishes a speech and the cheering just continues.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

And in the middle of this, Garfield has to get up and give the nominating address for John Sherman.

[Candace Millard]

Gentlemen of the convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people. When your enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions of this hour have subsided, we shall find below the storm and passion that calm level of public opinion from which the thoughts of a might people are to be measured and by which their final actions will be determined.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

And he's a complete, completely different person from Roscoe Conkling. He's quiet and intellectual and thoughtful, but he's very, very powerful.

[Candace Millard]

25 years ago this republic was bearing and wearing a triple chain of bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield praises the great effort it took to erase slavery from the United States. He calls to renew that spirit at.

[Candace Millard]

That crisis the Republican party was born. Then after the storms of battle were heard the calm words of peace spoken by the conquering nation.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

There were a lot of reporters there and I've read every single article about this and they all describe this hall just slowly becoming mesmerized.

[Candace Millard]

This is our only revenge that you join us in lifting into the serene firmament of the Constitution to shine like stars forever and ever. The immortal principles of truth and justice. That all men, white or black, shall be free and shall stand equal before the Lord law.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In the middle of all this, he pauses and he says, and now, gentlemen.

[Candace Millard]

Of the convention, what do we want?

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Someone in the crowd shouts, we want Garfield. And everybody just goes crazy. And he's trying to quiet them down and he literally says, you know, my friends, my friends, please, I ask you quiet down so you can hear what I have to say.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He was there to get John Sherman the nomination, so he's horrified that instead of cheering his name, they're saying Garfield.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He finishes his nominating address and he sits down. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, someone stands up and gives one of their votes to Garfield. And he's like, what? And he stands up and he objects, but they shout him down.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

When the balloting begins, things proceed normally at first.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Then round after round, more and more and more votes start coming from him again. He's not a candidate.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield does not want to be the nominee.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

But this trickle becomes a stream, becomes a river, and then just this flood of votes. And Garfield suddenly finds himself the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Garfield is in total shock over the next few days. It's not just shock that he feels, it's grief. Because he knows that if does then become president, he's going to have to give up so many of the things he loves.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Meanwhile, Roscoe Conkling, the guy who gave the speech supporting Grant's nomination, he was not happy.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He's furious.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And suddenly he feels like his interests are threatened.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

But they need him for the general election. They need his help.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So Garfield and his allies start looking to smooth things over with the stalwarts.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

And what they decide on is that they're going to use his man. Conkling's protege, Chester Arthur, who will be Garfield's running mate.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Chester Arthur was a man who had never held office. Yet here he was, being placed on the ticket as vice president as a way to appease the stalwarts. And he was an unlikely running mate for Garfield. He was from Vermont, but moved to New York City as a young man to chase fame and fortune.

[Tom Mack]

Arthur actually, as a young man, was involved in the case that ended up desegregating New York City's streetcars.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He was a progressive, and he was also great at schmoozing it up with the elites in the city.

[Tom Mack]

He was considered to be extraordinarily handsome. He was tall. He had those terrific Mutton chop, sideburns.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Like a Civil War era Great Gatsby.

[Tom Mack]

Sort of the back slapping guy who was interested in staying up all night drinking and smoking cigars. That was Chester Arthur.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

During the Civil War he met a number of political leaders and after the war ended he used those connections to become a lobbyist.

[Tom Mack]

From there he became a very important part of the New York political machine.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Roscoe Conkling took him under his wing and helped him become the head of the New York Custom House where he got very involved in the spoil system.

[Tom Mack]

There were close to a thousand patronage jobs there and it was very, very important to the New York Republican machine, the statewide machine, to be able to reward itself supporters with jobs at the Custom House.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Classic spoil system.

[Tom Mack]

He's fully invested in the spoil system. He's a creature of the spoil system.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He was completely loyal to Conkling.

[Tom Mack]

So this is Chester Arthur on the eve of the 1880 Republican convention.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So you can imagine Arthur is very surprised when he's asked to join a Republican ticket with Garfield.

[Tom Mack]

He was an emotional person and he was flabbergasted. But he says, you know what? This is the greatest honor that anyone has ever given me and I'm going to do it.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And he does it. They do it. Garfield and Arthur, the divided ticket. They win the election. But obviously it's still awkward, especially for Garfield.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

The person closest to him in his administration is his sort of sworn enemy.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And the tension rises even more when Garfield dedicates a part of his inauguration speech to calling for reform of the spoil system.

[Candace Millard]

The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He had freedmen and former slave owners in the crowd before him, tears in their eyes, you know, know, because there's so much promise and possibility for this still very young country.

[Candace Millard]

For the good of the service itself, for the protection of those who are entrusted with the appointing power, against the waste of time and obstruction to the public business caused by the inordinate pressure for place and for the protection of incumbents against intrigue. Wrong.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But not everyone was inspired by his message of reform.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Conkling is not going to back down. And he's got his man right there in the White House.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Chester Arthur, the new vice president.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

While Garfield is trying to set up his administration, Conkling is pulling every single person that Garfield's like, okay, maybe this guy Conkling gets to them first and pulls him into his apartment, which they had nicknamed the morgue, and terrifies them and threatens them.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He basically tells them, don't take a job With Garfield, if you want a future in the Republican Party, person after.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Person starts backing out. Like, I thought I wanted that position in your administration, Garfield. But I'm sorry, I can't take it.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

President Garfield is getting sabotaged by Conkling and the stalwarts. And on top of all that, he has to face face the realities of the spoil system every single day in the White House.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

At that time, people didn't think that there should be any protections for the president or any separation from the president.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So every day, random people would walk into the White House and queue to ask the president for a job.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Say, you want to be in charge of your post office in your little town, Go to the White House and make your case to the president himself.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And Garfield hated it.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

This is what made life hell really for Garfield when he was president. He specifically said, I don't know why anyone would ever want to be president.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The man who shot President Garfield On July 2, 1881, a man named Charles Guiteau. He was one of these office seekers.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

Guiteau was Garfield's opposite in every way. He had failed at everything he had tried.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He once started a newspaper that failed.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He had tried to be a lawyer.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At one point, he was a member of a cult, basically a free love commune.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

They had nicknamed him Charles get out.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He had campaigns for Garfield in 1880, which he felt entitled him to a big government job.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

As a reward, I should be given the ambassadorship to France. And so, you know, no background, no qualifications. But that's a spoil system, he thinks.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So then he starts writing to the.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

White House saying, yes, this is what I've done and this is what I'd like in return.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He doesn't get a response. And so Guiteau starts showing up to the White House almost daily to personally ask Garfield for a job.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

At one point, he even walks into the president's office with Garfield there.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He doesn't get the job offer he wanted. So he's furious and getting desperate.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He doesn't have any money. He's moving from boarding house to boarding house.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He's becoming hungrier and more delusional.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He thinks God wants him to kill the president to make Chester Arthur president. So to get the stalwarts in office.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He buys a pistol. And for weeks he stalks President Garfield, looking for the right moment to strike.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He reads that Garfield's going to be in the train station on July 2, and so he goes there and he's waiting for him when Garfield arrives.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I'm a stalwart of stalwarts Arthur is president now. These are the words Charles Guiteau screamed after shooting Garfield. Meanwhile, Vice President Chester Arthur is in New York with Roscoe Conkling.

[Tom Mack]

Someone tells them what has happened, that Garfield has been shot. And Arthur's reaction is he, he basically just collapses in the chair. He can't even believe that this has happened. Not only is he shocked and upset that the President of the United States has been shot, he is fearful that people are talking about him as a suspect, that he and Conkling might be involved in this somehow.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Conkling has a different reaction.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

He's like, great, this is our opportunity. Garfield will die, you'll become president and I can run things again. But Chester Arthur has the opposite reaction. He's grief stricken and the American people are furious. They think that Conkling and Chester Arthur were behind it, which they weren't. But they think that. And they think that Chester Arthur's just waiting in the wings. But strangely, the opposite is happening.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Coming up, the letters that change the American civil service forever. Hi, I'm Aline Racy calling from San Jose, California, and you're listening to Throughline.

[Scott Greenberger]

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

Part 3 Metamorphosis to.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

The Honorable Chester A. Arthur. The people are bowed in grief, but do you realize it not so much because he is dying as because you are his successor as president.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Garfield lies in the White House, an infection spreading through his body. Vice President Chester Arthur starts getting a.

[Tom Mack]

Series of letters from this mysterious woman in New York.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

A 31 year old single woman.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

She was just this invalid shut in.

[Tom Mack]

But she is a political junkie who clearly knows all about Chester Arthur and his background and how he grew up.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Your kindest opponents say Arthur will try to write, adding gloomily, he won't succeed, though making a man president cannot change him.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Her name is Julia Sand.

[Tom Mack]

They'd never met before.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At first it seems that she, like most of the country, doesn't have high hopes for Arthur. But then she writes, but making a.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Man president can change him. Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If there is a spark of true nobility in you now is the Occasion to let it shine.

[Tom Mack]

So she really. She zeroes in on what he's feeling.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Your past. You know best, what it has been. You have lived for worldly things. Fairly or unfairly, you have won them. You are rich, powerful. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will be president. What is it all worth?

[Tom Mack]

She urges him. She says, listen, you can now make up for all these years of shady machine politics by doing the right thing, by championing civil service reform, by finally solving this issue that has resulted inevitably in this horrible event, the shooting of Garfield. You are the guy.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Faith in your better nature forces me to write you, but not to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult and more brave. Reform.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Meanwhile, Garfield's condition is getting worse. Doctor after doctor visits him. Even Alexander Graham Bell brings his prototype for a metal detector to help doctors find where the bullets were lodged.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

This goes on for months.

[Tom Mack]

It's the front page of the. Of the newspapers every day.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

It was just horrific.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

By August, it becomes clear to Garfield and his doctors that he's probably not going to recover. Garfield demands to be taken out of the White House. He wants to go to the sea.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

So they get a train, and they got the inside of a. One of the train cars and they totally change it out. They put his bed in there and they take him to New Jersey. One of the most touching scenes is when they get to the house that's on the. On a hill. And the train tracks don't go up the hill. They stop. And all these people who are there waiting, they themselves lift this train car and pull it up the last few feet to the door of this house to try to save him some more misery.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He spends the next several days there by the beach with his wife and family, staring out at the ocean.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

And that's where he dies. He died in September. September 19th.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

A few days later, Chester Arthur is sworn in as the 21st president of the United States. And Julia sand never stops believing in him. She kept sending him letters.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Nothing could be more beautiful than the manner in which you have borne yourself through this long, hard ordeal.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Less than a year after becoming president, Arthur visited Julia sand at her home.

[Tom Mack]

He just showed up on her doorstep in Manhattan one day. He came and said, you know what? You don't fully understand how hard it is to be in my position. You know, you criticize me for some things. You expect me to be an angel, and it's impossible to be an angel in this job. But I really do appreciate these letters, and they've meant a lot to me.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

She believed in him and I think it was that belief, you know, that helped him find the strength to try to do the right thing.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At last, not long after he became president, Chester Arthur turned his back on his old mentor, Rascal Conkling.

[Tom Mack]

For the vice presidency, I'm indebted to you and my role in the party, but for the presidency, I'm indebted to Almighty God. I'm in charge of the country and I need to serve all the American people and not just the political machine. So the first surprising thing that Arthur did was in his first annual message, which is what we now call the State of the Union.

[Julia Sand]

Chester Arthur does what what nobody thought he would do.

[Tom Mack]

He surprised everyone by endorsing civil service reform.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Congress should deem it advisable at the.

[Candace Millard]

Present session to establish competitive tests for.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Admission to the service. No doubts such as have been suggested.

[Candace Millard]

Shall deter me from giving the measure my earnest support.

[Julia Sand]

Chester Arthur, the stalwart of stalwarts, says, we need to do something about this.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It's a total 180 that tips the scales in favor of civil service reform. And there's already an Ohio senator who's been working on the issue, George Pendleton. George Pendleton was a prominent Democrat, and at that time many Democrats were openly sympathetic to the former Confederacy.

[Julia Sand]

Pendleton did believe that Africans were inferior to white Americans.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Tom Mack. He's a history professor at Cedarville University and the author of Gentleman George Hunt, Party Politics and ideological identity in 19th century America.

[Julia Sand]

He believed that slavery was a state issue.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Pendleton was not a progressive like Garfield or Arthur, but he did agree with them on one thing.

[Julia Sand]

He is concerned about the spoil system. Now the system's become elitist once again. And the only way to fix that is to reform civil service.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And in order to do something about it, he has to go beyond his own party for support.

[Julia Sand]

Much of his party opposed him in the civil service reform. There is no question that most of his support comes from across the aisle, from Republicans.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He puts together a civil service reform bill that would come to be called the Pendleton Act. It did things like set up a test for all federal government job seekers.

[Julia Sand]

You had to pass the exam in order to be able to be considered for a government job. This is the concept of civil service by merit. If you're going to be working in the accounting office of the Treasury Department, you can actually keep a ledger at this time.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was a revolutionary idea. You get the government job because of your ability, not just party loyalty. The spoil system was so entrenched in American politics, it was going to be hard to pass this bill. But President Garfield's death galvanized a movement for reform that couldn't be stopped.

[Julia Sand]

Finally gets passed both houses of Congress in 1883.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And shortly after, on January 16, 1883, a little over a year after Garfield's death, President Chester Arthur signed the page Pendleton act into law.

[Tom Mack]

It was most definitely the beginning of the professional civil service that we have now. And in subsequent decades, they added civil service protections for more workers. And it grew and grew and grew.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At first, the Pendleton act only covered about 10% of federal jobs, a few thousand federal workers. But as time went on, it expanded to eventually cover the vast majority of the federal workforce, which now measures in the millions.

[Tom Mack]

These people who are professional civil servants, many of whom have been there for decades through administrations Democratic and Republican, they serve the American people. They're not serving whoever happens to be in the White House. And they have expertise. And yes, they're supposed to be implementing the laws faithfully, but their jobs are not to advance the agenda of any party or particular president.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Less than a year after he shot President Garfield, Charles Guiteau was executed. His madness had driven the country into mourning and inadvertently sparked a chain of events that would alter the future of the federal government of the United States.

[Rend Abdelfattah]

It doesn't always take a big event to change the course of history, right? It can be something as small as one man's madness, one woman's faith, one man's sort of personal ambition, and one man's death to completely change the course of history.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

And that's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfattah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you've been listening to throughline from npr.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

This episode was produced by me and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Me and Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya Steinberg, Casey Minor, Christina Kim, Devin Kadayama, Irene Noguchi. Voiceover Work for this episode was done by Micah Basquier, Ashley Strachey, Amalia, Manuel Martinez and Ari Steinberg. Thank you to Johannes Durgi, Edith Chapin, Luis Clemens, Tony Cavan and Colin Campbell. This episode was mixed by Maggie Luthar.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which.

[Candace Millard]

Includes Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Fact checking for this episode was done by Andrea Lopez Crusado. And before we go, we have to shout out the book by Scott Greenberger. One of our guests on this show called the Unexpected the Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur. And finally, if you have an idea or like something, you heard on this show. Please write [e-mail] and make sure you follow us on Apple, Spotify or the NPR app. That way you'll never miss an episode.

[Leigh Ann Spagnola]

Thanks for listening.

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