After a short break, we’re back at the
bookshelf for another presidential reading adventure.
“Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness,
Medicine and the Murder of a President” by Candice Millard
Published in 2011
It’s a heartbreaking story.
President James Garfield was sort of the JFK
of his time, a young war hero, brilliant and well-liked with younger children.
Author Candice Miller, who also has written “The
River of Doubt” about Theodore Roosevelt’s near-fatal expedition, weaves the
tale of Garfield’s humble beginnings and rise to presidency with the life of
his eventual assassin, Charles J. Guiteau.
They
intersect on July 2, 1881 in a Washington train station when Guiteau shoots the
president from behind, just months into his term. Garfield died two months
later.
The
tragedy is that this wouldn’t happen today.
Guiteau
suffered from severe mental illness and probably wouldn’t be walking the streets
untreated today. Certainly his increasingly hostile letters to the White House demanding
an office would today draw attention and a visit from the Secret Service.
I’d
say that no one would be able to walk up to a president in a train station
these days, but I never expected someone in 2014 would be able to stroll into
the White House undetected, either.
It’s
also likely that modern medicine would have saved the president, who, as
Millard vividly tells us, was unfortunately subjected to less-than-stellar
medical care and eventually died – painfully -- from infection and starvation.
The bullet, it turned out, somehow missed his spine and vital organs. If left
alone, he’d have been home in a matter of days and recover completely.
In
one of Guiteau’s clearer moments during his farcical trial, he said that he
merely shot the president, and that his doctors killed him.
Garfield
today is remembered as a president with tremendous potential who served too
briefly to make an impact. But his successor, New Yorker Chester Arthur, was
able to use Garfield’s death and the hands of a deranged office-seeker to
create the civil service system.
My
son and I were able to visit Garfield’s magnificent tomb in Cleveland in
2008. The
20th president rests in Lake View Cemetery on the city’s east side.
We arrived at the castle-like memorial
about 4:02 — only to find it closed at 4 p.m. We ran up the stairs and found
the door already locked, and were about to walk away when it slowly opened.
The caretaker said he was sorry, and that he had just closed. I asked if we could quickly pay our respects. He appreciated that we had come from far away, opened the door all the way and said, "Let me go and turn all the lights back on."
And once inside we saw a spectacular rotunda with a large white statue of Garfield, dramatically lit. The caretaker said the architect didn’t want the statue in there, thinking it was unnecessary, but was overruled by the committee overseeing the project.
He pointed out some of the features, then sent us to the circular stone staircase to the lower level.
And there, on simple stone pedestals, were the caskets of President Garfield and his wife, Lucretia as well as urns containing the cremains of their daughter and her husband.
The caretaker said he was sorry, and that he had just closed. I asked if we could quickly pay our respects. He appreciated that we had come from far away, opened the door all the way and said, "Let me go and turn all the lights back on."
And once inside we saw a spectacular rotunda with a large white statue of Garfield, dramatically lit. The caretaker said the architect didn’t want the statue in there, thinking it was unnecessary, but was overruled by the committee overseeing the project.
He pointed out some of the features, then sent us to the circular stone staircase to the lower level.
And there, on simple stone pedestals, were the caskets of President Garfield and his wife, Lucretia as well as urns containing the cremains of their daughter and her husband.
I’ve been to a number of presidential
grave sites, and in every other place the caskets are either buried or encased in
a vault.
 |
| The caskets of Mrs. and President Garfield. |
I didn’t want to impose any longer, so
we rushed back upstairs and thanked the caretaker profusely.
But he said we weren’t done, and pointed
to stairs leading up to an observation deck, where, he said, we’d have the best
view of the Cleveland skyline in the city.
And he was correct.
Your reading list so far:
March 11: "Street Gang" by Michael Davis
March 10: "Topps Baseball Cards, the Complete Picture Collection"
March 9: "Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks" by Bob Wood
March 8: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris
March 10: "Topps Baseball Cards, the Complete Picture Collection"
March 9: "Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks" by Bob Wood
March 8: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris
March 7: "The New York Mets" by Leonard Koppett
March 6: "Mary Lou" by Mary Lou Retton and Bela Karolyi
March 5: "Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century" by Marc OkkenonMarch 6: "Mary Lou" by Mary Lou Retton and Bela Karolyi
March 4: "Clemente! The Enduring Legacy" by Kal Wagenheim
March 3: "Mets by the Numbers" by Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman
2 comments:
We've been there just after it closed, too. But too late to have the luck to be let back in. My son fiddled with the door until he thinks he set off an alarm. One of the most amazing cemeteries I have ever been in, and as a geocacher, I've been in quite a few.
Cool story, Dave! Apparently the tomb has community meeting rooms and all kinds of features that one might not expect.
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