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“At Liberty’s Door”

No caption

In this doleful cartoon, Lady
Liberty stands by the White House door weeping for President James Garfield, who has been mortally
wounded by an assassin, Charles Guiteau. On
the floor are bloodstains from Lincoln and Garfield and the discarded laurel
of Independence Day. To the left, a
crowd reverently pays its respects, as the Capitol Building towers in the
background. Cartoonist Nast's double-page tribute appeared in a
special edition of Harper's Weekly, dedicated to the shooting of
Garfield, who would linger until his death two-and-a-half months later.
Charles Guiteau was born in
Illinois, but followed his father's urging and joined the free-love
utopian commune of Oneida, New York, where he lived during the Civil War
years. Critical comments on his egotism by Oneida members, and
negative reactions from the women, clashed with his inflated
self-image. After leaving Oneida in 1865, Guiteau spent his time
drifting from job to job and place to place, usually one step ahead of
his creditors. He married, but mistreated his wife, Annie, by
locking her in a closet, and contracted syphilis from a
prostitute. In 1874, his wife divorced him.
Guiteau never manifested an
interest in politics until 1872 when he became convinced that
electioneering for a presidential candidate would result in a patronage
position. He did not have just any government job in mind, but the
U.S. ministership to Chile. He worked on Horace Greeley's
campaign, but when the New York Tribune editor was unsuccessful,
Guiteau turned to religion. His Baptist church kicked him out in
1875 after his divorce, but the next fall he began attending revivals in
Chicago led by Dwight Moody, one of the nation's leading
evangelists. Guiteau became an
usher, and was allowed to address a meeting, until Moody intervened
to stop his rambling sermon. Undeterred, Guiteau studied religion
on his own and wrote a Bible commentary. His subsequent attempt at preaching
was a dismal failure.
In 1880, Guiteau took up
politics again. He began hanging around Republican campaign
headquarters in New York City, where he met Chester Arthur and other
important Republicans, and was allowed to do minor tasks. Although
co-workers considered him strange, they treated him politely, which he
interpreted incorrectly as respect. On his own initiative, he
wrote a campaign speech praising former president Grant, but when
Garfield was nominated that summer, Guiteau simply replaced Grant's name
with Garfield's.
When electoral returns in the
"October states" (which voted before the November election)
indicated a Garfield victory, Guiteau began his letter writing campaign
for a diplomatic mission. He explained to the new president that
he would soon be marrying a wealthy woman from a prominent New York
Republican family (he had seen her once in church), and he would
therefore be an excellent choice for minister to Vienna or Paris.
In early March 1881, two days
after Garfield's presidential inauguration, Guiteau arrived in
Washington with five dollars in his pocket and one extra shirt. He
took up residence at a boarding house, where the perceptive landlady
placed him in an out-of-the-way room. However, he still managed to
bother the other residents, particularly Senator John Logan, an Illinois
Republican, whom he badgered about the diplomatic
appointment. Guiteau began visiting the State Department, where he
sought the intervention of the new secretary of state, James
Blaine. The future assassin also began visiting the White House,
where he waited with numerous other office-seekers.
On May 13, Guiteau argued with
White House ushers and was barred from returning. The next day
when he accosted Blaine on the street, the harassed secretary of state
yelled at him, "Never speak to me again on the Paris consulship as
long as you live!" On May 16, a patronage battle
between President Garfield and New York's senators, Roscoe Conkling and
Thomas Platt, ended in the senators' surprise resignation. Guiteau
concluded that his campaign for a diplomatic post was thwarted by a
conspiracy against the Stalwart wing of the Republican Party,
represented by Conkling and Vice President Arthur. On May 18,
Guiteau further surmised that the solution was to rid the world of
President Garfield, and that he was God's chosen instrument for that
duty.
On Sunday, June 12, Guiteau
followed the president to church, and decided that shooting him through
a window on the following Sunday would be preferable to doing so inside
the building. The assassin revised his plans, however, when it was
announced that Garfield would escort his ailing wife to the resort of
Long Branch, New Jersey. Guiteau decided to kill the president at
the train station, but was deterred that Saturday morning, June 18, by
the sight of the feeble Mrs. Garfield. In the meantime, Guiteau
visited the prison where he would be held, pronouncing it
"excellent ... the best jail in America," and he revised his
biblical commentary for posthumous publication.
The president returned to
Washington on June 27, planning to depart for the summer on July
2. Guiteau again trailed Garfield, deciding not to shoot the
president at two opportunities. Finally, on July 2,
Guiteau believed that it was now or never. The assassin arrived at
the Baltimore and Potomac Depot at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and
Sixth Street at 8:30 a.m. He paced the floor nervously, and
deposited two packages with a newsstand manager: a letter to
reporters explaining why the assassination was "a political
necessity," and his religious book, The Truth.
At 9:30 a.m., Garfield entered
the depot with Blaine, who was seeing him off. Guiteau shot the
president, grazing his arm and causing him to spin around; a second shot
entered Garfield's lower back, four inches from his spinal column.
The police officer on duty, Patrick
Kearney, had not seen the shooting, but apprehended Guiteau who was
suspiciously running from the scene. The president was soon transferred by ambulance to his White House bedroom, where Dr. D. W.
Bliss and a team of physicians attended him.
News of the shooting spread
quickly, and the Washington Post printed an extra edition
prematurely reporting the president's death. In New York City,
flags were lowered to half-mast, and then raised. In the wake of
Tsar Alexander's assassination
by anarchists a few months
earlier, some feared a conspiracy. Upon his arrest, Guiteau
proclaimed that he had avenged the Stalwarts and now Arthur would be
president. None of these men, of course, knew anything of
Guiteau's plans. Vice President Arthur was devastated by the news,
refused to serve as acting president, and sobbed uncontrollably when the president finally
died. Senator
Conkling paid a courtesy call to the sickbed of his political rival.
President Garfield had the best
medical care that the nation could offer in 1881; in other words, it was
terrible. In the first two days, 15 physicians examined the
president, many plunging their naked fingers into his wound to locate
the bullet. Finding the bullet, which was not accomplished until
the autopsy, consumed an inordinate amount of time, even though people
could lead normal lives with bullets in their bodies. For the
first weeks, Garfield was able to communicate and eat regularly
(despite suffering from nausea).
On July 23, though, he began
vomiting, running a high fever, and having chills. On August 8, they
operated on what they thought was the bullet track, but which turned out
to be a pus channel. In late August, when the president could no
longer ingest food, the doctors gave him rectal enemas of broth and
minced or watered food. The president lost 130 pounds, and pus
began draining from his mouth, nose, and ears. He remained
mentally alert, though not surprisingly, he became depressed.
On September 7, at the
president's insistence, he was taken by train to the New Jersey
shore. He died there on September 19, 1881, just days short of his
50th birthday. In New York City, Chester Arthur was sworn in as
the 21st president of the United States. Garfield's body lay in
state in the Capitol rotunda for two days, during which thousands of
mourners viewed his remains. On October 14, 1881, Charles Guiteau
was indicted for the murder of President James Garfield, and his trial
lasted from November 1881 through late January 1882. Although
Guiteau's attorney pleaded his client's insanity, the jury took less
than an hour to find him guilty as charged. He was publicly hanged on June 30, 1882.
Robert C. Kennedy
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