I'm reading "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President" by Candice Millard. (Commission earned if you use that link.)
Sit crosslegged and look wise.
November 3, 2023
"[T]raveling from town to town and asking for votes was considered undignified for a presidential candidate."
"Abraham Lincoln had not given a single speech on his own behalf during either of his campaigns, and Rutherford B. Hayes advised [James A.] Garfield to do the same. 'Sit crosslegged,' he said, 'and look wise.' Happily left to his own devices, Garfield poured his time and energy into his farm. He worked in the fields, planting, hoeing, and harvesting crops, and swung a scythe with the confidence and steady hand he had developed as a boy. In July, he oversaw the threshing of his oats. 'Result 475 bushels,' he noted. 'No[t] so good a yield as last year.'"
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and swung a scythe with the confidence and steady hand he had developed as a boy
Scythes are not swung and confidence would not show up. Efficiency would be what you noticed, from regularity. The blade not catching dirt or stalling from too large a slice.
A short boy would have difficulty with an adult scythe owing to geometry putting the blade at the wrong angle.
Maybe she's imagining sickle anyway.
Great book. I read it a couple years ago. The manner in which they treated Garfield after he was shot will apall you.
Sit crosslegged and look wise.
Is this not the antithesis of the farmer?
"A short boy would have difficulty with an adult scythe owing to geometry putting the blade at the wrong angle."
James Garfield grew to be a 6 foot man, so he probably wasn't a short boy.
"The manner in which they treated Garfield after he was shot will apall you."
I don't think I'll be appalled, because I've read the gruesome details somewhere else — can't remember where — but I know this book tells it especially well.
I read that a few years ago: good read. One of the things I remember is that Garfield, when he was a teacher, could write a sentence in Latin and Greek on a chalkboard with both hands simultaneously. Or something like that.
He was a righteous dude.
Sit crosslegged and look wise.
Buddha say "It fools them every time."
I’ve always been intrigued by the argument that it’s the doctor’s fault he died, not the shooter.
Garfield's death was blamed on the spoils system and spawned civil service bureaucracy. In his eponymous comedy album "A Child of the Fifties", Robert Klein said Garfield was shot by a disappointed office seeker.
Finally! A post with a James A. Garfield tag! And as an added bonus, it also has the first ever (on this blog) Rutherford B. Hayes tag!
As an aside, if you find yourself in Cleveland it's worth a trip to Garfield's tomb at Lakeview Cemetery. Climb the stairs to the top. Great panoramic view of the city with Lake Erie in the background.
"Finally! A post with a James A. Garfield tag! And as an added bonus, it also has the first ever (on this blog) Rutherford B. Hayes tag!"
The making of the tag implies the belief that there will be more posts with that tag or that if I go back into the archive, there will be posts to which I could add the tag.
Thanks for noticing!
"Sit crosslegged and look wise"
In line with his recommendation to remain quiet and let people think you're a fool rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
"I’ve always been intrigued by the argument that it’s the doctor’s fault he died, not the shooter."
One of American history's greatest fun facts is that Alexander Graham Bell invented the metal detector specifically to find the bullet. It worked on all the Civil War veterans with lead in them he tried it on, but it went off everywhere he held it over the president...who, they would later discover, had bought and was lying on one of the first metal-spring mattresses.
That's a great book of a great man! I really think he could have been a great president.
Actually, I already had a tag for Garfield - "President Garfield." I've gone back and changed that to "James A. Garfield." There are a good number of posts.
I've also added at least on more "Rutherford B. Hayes" tag.
Click on the tags and enjoy.
I remembered where I'd read about Garfield's death: Bill Bryson's "“At Home: A Short History of Private Life":
"[Alexander Graham] Bell moved to Washington, D.C., became a U.S. citizen, and devoted himself to worthwhile pursuits. Among other things, he invented the iron lung and experimented with telepathy. When President James A. Garfield was shot by a disgruntled lunatic in 1881, Bell was called in to see if he could help locate the bullet. He invented a metal detector, which worked beautifully in the laboratory but gave confused results at Garfield’s bedside. Not until much later was it realized that the device had been reading the presidential bedsprings."
well the bullet had something to do with it,
And later in Bryson's book:
"When President James A. Garfield was shot in 1881, it wasn’t the bullet that killed him, but doctors sticking their unwashed fingers in the wound."
I remember some other book too — with more details.
You will enjoy this book. In addition to the Garfield narrative, the journeys of the other major political players are fascinating, too.
Garfield has been 'cancelled' in recent years by some podcasters/pundits due to the troubles in his marriage, but I find that unfair.
He's one of the very few U.S. Presidents who literally came up from nothing and nowhere- and was an early, vocal supporter of racial equality.
Politicians are still going town to town asking for votes. Saw PDJT last weekend, here in LV. He was between appearances, having lunch in the DJT restaurant in the hotel here. The first one was speaking to Jewish Republicans. Can’t remember the second one.
My theory, right now, is that approach is out of favor with Democrats right now, because they have discovered that spending their time on ballot stuffing is more effective in winning election. I remember the elections last year in AZ, where Katy Hobbs said almost exactly that - that she had more important things to do than making public appearances. Sure enough, she won election as governor, moving up from Secretary of State, certifying her own election, through massive, and sometimes quite ingenious, election fraud (like printing ballots in Republican precincts at one size, and then trying to scan and read them at a significantly smaller size - which of course, didn’t work). They have had two consecutive Presidential candidates physically unable to effectively campaign in front of crowds of any size. Crooked Hillary came close, and FJB won, the latter through massive election fraud in 5-6 heavily Dem cities across the country.
Garfield lived in a time that party platforms and parties meant something. You were expected to vote the party ticket. And elected officials were expected to follow the party platform. So, there wasn't much need for POTUS candidates to stump the country.
THe first one who did that was William J. Bryan, who shocked everyone by speaking everywhere. But he lost. The radio was when POTUS candidates truly began to communicate directly with the voters.
Politics in some ways were more honest in Garfields time. You had democrat and republican newspapers and everyone had a voice and no one lied about being "objective". Today we have a locked down, top down, billionaire owned media. All shouting the same message and all saying they are neutral and objective. More similar to the USSR than 1880 America.
I read the sample and it looked pretty good. I meant to read the whole thing but got sidetracked. I still have the sample on my Kindle.
The reason I read the sample is because there was a History Channel(?) documentary on Garfield's death that she hosted and it was pretty impressive. I don't see the one I had in mind on YouTube just now but there are several others of her spending an hour or so discussing the book.
She also wrote what looks like a really good book (from the sample) about Theodore Roosevelt's expedition up what used to be called the "River of Doubt" (Now Rio Roosevelt) in Brazil. He did this after the presidency. Quite the expedition, almost killed him, probably contributed to his early demise.
I started reading Millard's book then thought, why not go to the primary source. So I read Roosevelt's account of the expedition. It seems untoppable (He is a heluva writer) so I never did read Millard's version.
I was especially fascinated with his visit to a herpetarium and letting a very deadly snake crawl into his sweater.
Apparently on the basis that they seldom bite unless frightened. Though when they do, they invariably kill. Imagine today's secret service in that situation.
John Henry
I would be appalled if threated today as Garfield was. It was apparently pretty standard treatment at the time.
Until very recently medical treatment in general was appalling.
Remember that in 1929 Coolidge's son died of a foot blister he got playing tennis. As the president's son, he got the very best treatment available at the time.
John Henry
Sit cross-eyed and look twice.
I've never thought of it as "asking for votes", an ineffective approach to be sure.
I considered it an opportunity for an office-seeker to a) tell voters the reasons they should vote for you b) and more likely, the reasons they should not vote for the opponent and c) if facing a friendly croxd, gin up enthusiasm.
The author hasn't been to many political rallies, methinks.
It's an excellent book. So tragic that Edison's metal-detector would have worked and found the bullet if there hadn't been metal wire in Garfield's mattress. On such small things history can turn.
Not sure if I buy one part of the author's narrative that Chester A. Arthur was so stunned and horrified by Garfield's death that he went from being the graftiest spoils-system graft who ever grafted to a true believer in a reformed civil service: I cynically think he just realized that he could put his people into permanent jobs with "civil service reform" rather than risking their being kicked out by the next president. Grafters gonna graft.
25 or 6 to 4. No applesauce involved.
Ann Althouse,
I realize you were quoting someone, but experimenting with telepathy is NOT a worthwhile pursuit.
Bell was called in to see if he could help locate the bullet. He invented a metal detector, which worked beautifully in the laboratory but gave confused results at Garfield’s bedside. Not until much later was it realized that the device had been reading the presidential bedsprings."
==========
is that because Bell himself was not wielding metal detector over Garfield's body?
surely as scientist he would have figured out what was happening!
extra bonus >> was detector also swung-wielded like scythe!?
The Crack Emcee said...
"experimenting with telepathy is NOT a worthwhile pursuit."
Certainly isn't, but that's more a was than an is.
We've accumulated a lot of hindsight since then. Any slack given for the olden days?
"is that because Bell himself was not wielding metal detector over Garfield's body?
surely as scientist he would have figured out what was happening!"
It wasn't till after the president died that they learned he had taken it upon himself to buy one of the first metal-spring mattresses.
Millard's book about Churchill--Hero of the Empire--is quite good, and I learned a lot bout WSC that I hadn't known before.
Scott Patton said...
"Any slack given for the olden days?"
Oh yeah. I wasn't criticizing Bell, but that assessment of his interests, from our perspective. After all the trouble we can see this nonsense has been causing society, there is no reason for us not to call out foolish mumbo-jumbo for what it is, at every encounter. It's the only way to rein it in.
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