Amer Pres: Garfield

James Garfield is probably best known for being assassinated early in his presidency and then suffering a lingering death. It is a shame that this person is so little known. His story is that of an American success (Horatio Alger spoke of him as a model of "poor boy makes good"). But we will never know how good (or mediocre) he would have been as president. There are signs that he could have been another in a long line of mediocrities (he seemed sometimes loath to make people unhappy and appears to have sometimes caved to pressure). Still, he also had some strengths (good knowledge of budget and finances). The book opens by noting his background, coming from poor circumstances, working as a canal boatman for awhile. Going to school and "pulling himself up by the boot straps." Poor boy ended up graduating from an elite Eastern college. He became interested in politics at that point. After a brief stint as a teacher, he was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 (the youngest member) as a Republican. When the Civil War broke out, he volunteered and ended up being William Rosecrans' Chief of Staff, where he performed capably. During his military service, he was nominated to run for Congress as a Republican from Ohio. After the disaster at Chickamauga, he ran and won the election and ended his military career (he ended up being promoted to major general at the end of his service, pretty remarkable--and a sign of the political connections he had developed, for instance, with Salmon Chase). He was a radical Republican and often at odds with President Lincoln. He became a leader in the House for the Republican Party. He worked hard. There were a few times that he stumbled into ethically compromising situations, but the author tends to think that he was sometimes blind to appearances and was not, in fact, corrupt. There follows the story of his rise in the party, his nomination in 1880 as the Republican candidate as a "dark horse," when the leading figures could not get enough votes to garner the nomination. Then, his election. He agonized over selecting his Cabinet, and the process was ugly, with him sometimes giving in to pressure and other times exerting himself. He managed a very nice fiscal triumph. However, after only a handful of months in office, he was shot by Charles Guiteau. And then--what a story. Medical incompetence led to a slowly deteriorating condition, where he suffered for months until he expired. Part of the strength of this work is the American medical profession at a turning point--with old-line doctors not keeping up with developments in medical science (such as antiseptic treatment of wounds) versus junior physicians adopting new methods, Unhappily, Garfield was treated by old-line doctors who contributed mightily to his death. Another brief biography in the American Presidents series. Don't know anything about James Garfield? Here's a nice brief introduction to his career.

James Garfield is one of the lesser known presidents, in no small part due to the brevity of his term in office. Ira Rutkow does a very good job of examining his life and showing how he was a highly intelligent man and a crafty politician who always managed to get others to push him up the ladder of success. The book gets most interested when he talks about Garfield's assassination. Of the fact he was shot by a deranged man there is no doubt. What Rutkow does a very good job at is examining contemporary medicine's role in killing Garfield. By most accounts his wound was non-fatal and had it been left alone he would have survived. Even his assassin claimed this at his trial. The book does a great job of examining why Garfield's care was so poor and how by dying James Garfield did a great service to medicine's advancement. I have said before that this series is at its best with the lesser known Presidents and this book reinforces my belief in that axiom.

I'll add my voice to those lauding this series of informative, but concise, presidential biographies. This biography is unique in two ways. First is its subject matter, that of a president who did not survive his term (or even complete his first year) in office. Second, the author is not a conventional historian, but is rather a physician by training. As one of the few House members to go (more or less; he was actually a Senator-elect) from that chamber to the White House is also highly unique to Garfield. Despite Rutkow's different perspective, I consider this among the better biographies of the set (although I think mostly all have been good). Rutkow highlights Garfield's academic background along with the congressman's war service and radical credentials during the Reconstruction years. Although he died young, Garfield's was a life in full. Unfortunately, Garfield's assassination was not only tragic in its own right, at the hands of a disgruntled office-seeker, but as Rutkow demonstrates, the president's death was a slow, agonizing, and likely preventable one. Rutkow's attention to the medical issues and practice of the time also provides a wider social context of Garfield's era and the circumstances he and the wider population faced.

I suppose by some measure, James Garfield was one of the best presidents ever. After all, he didn't really mess things up. Conversely, he may be one of the worst, as he had no real accomplishments either. That's what happens when you occupy the office for around six months, much of which were with an eventually fatal bullet wound. In truth, even if Garfield had not been assassinated, he would probably would never have been one of more significant Chief Executives, just another in a line of minor figures to occupy the White House after the Civil War. Wedged in a group that includes Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison, Garfield would be similarly obscure had he not died in office. Ira Rutkow's brief biography of Garfield (part of the American Presidents Series) does not have much to say about Garfield's brief tenure as President. Instead, the focus is on two things: Garfield's rise to that office and the medical bungling that did more to bring about his death than the bullet had. After an uneventful childhood, Garfield eventually started taking education seriously and, after finishing college, briefly taught and practiced law before becoming involved in politics. This was on the local level until the Civil War, where he served as an officer and eventually rose to the rank of general (though his military career left little impact on the war's outcome). Even before the Civil War ended, he had moved on to Congress where he served for nearly twenty years. Garfield was one of the more "radical" Republicans and parlayed his growing influence in the party to become a dark horse candidate in the 1880 Presidential election. He would win, but a disgruntled (and somewhat crazed) Charles Guiteau would shoot Garfield just four months into his Presidency. Unfortunately, the doctors who oversaw his care were essentially incompetent, ignoring basic rules of cleanliness that were well-known by that time, and they wound up causing far more damage than the original bullet. Rutkow, whose background is in medicine, spends a lot of the book discussing late 19th Century medical practices and goes into great detail about the shortcomings of those who treated Garfield. He does a decent job, and given Garfield's limited historical significance, it is probably more appropriate for a medical educator to write this book than a regular historian who would probably be hard pressed to fill 150 pages with Garfield's accomplishments. If you're really interested in the life of Garfield, I know there are bigger, more detailed biographies out there, but this book is at least a good introduction, and for most people will provide all the information on the twentieth president that they would ever need.

In the grade school litany of the names of our nation's leaders, James Garfield does not even merit a pause. Amidst Washington, Adams, Jackson and Lincoln, then Roosevelt and Eisenhower later, the twentieth President gets little more in even High School U.S. History than does Pierce or Fillmore. Yet he was a complex and accomplished individual, a General in the Army and a most skilled politician. Rutkow is a physician, and an accomplished author. He brings the eye of the surgeon to the treatment of the President after the assassination attempt while concisely reviewing his early life and run to the presidency with aplomb. At a time when the subject of errors in medicine is much with us, it is sobering to read of the "treatment" of the highest elected official. Rutkow validly makes the point that President Garfield was not simply maltreated: he was killed by the physicians watching over him, primarily one eclectic and ego-driven surgeon. Had Garfield suffered the same bullet wound in 2006 he might have been discharged from the emergency room and lived to a ripe old age. Beyond this tome, the entire "American Presidents" series edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. now numbers 33 volumes and is a collective treasure providing brief but well written biographies of the men who have led our country.