By Edwin Cooney
The gravity of Chester Alan Arthur’s
story lies not so much in the historic legacy of his administration, but rather
in the drama and dignity of his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in
office. That the public, from its
elected officials, down through its press, its clergy and the plain people,
were not only skeptical of, but even feared this political hack’s assumption of
the presidency is not only obvious but downright reasonable. That he was allowed to serve and finish his
term a respectable chief executive is to this observer an amazing story.
No vice president before or since Chet
Arthur has been as openly and as unashamedly disloyal to his chief as was Chet
Arthur to James A. Garfield. Presidents
and vice presidents, Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun and
Andrew Jackson, as two examples, had quarreled over their political
differences. Although historians
generally conclude that Garfield’s Secretary of State James G. Blaine and
Arthur’s political boss United States Senator from New York Roscoe Conkling
were the real puppet masters of this political feud, Arthur’s conduct was seen
by a significant portion of the public as grossly political. To many, the vice president’s behavior lacked
policy or principle. After all, wasn’t
an elected vice president, for all his traditional anonymity, expected to show
loyalty to the nation’s elected president?
Then, as it happened, even as Charles Guiteau’s two bullets violated the
president’s body, his vice president was on a steamer between Albany and New
York City with the president’s most determined political enemy. Even more ironic is the likelihood that
Arthur and Garfield probably felt less personal antagonism toward one another
than had President Thomas Jefferson felt toward Aaron Burr, or Andrew Jackson
felt toward John C. Calhoun. (Note: As
he was dying at the Hermitage on Sunday, June 8th, 1845, General Jackson was
asked if he had any regrets. “The only regret I have,” responded the old
general “is that I didn’t hang John Calhoun.”) The fundamental circumstantial
difference between the Jefferson-Burr and the Jackson-Calhoun quarrels was that
neither Burr nor Calhoun would face the enormous and critical challenge of
succeeding a president assassinated in their name.
At 12:45 a.m., Tuesday, September 20th,
1881, Arthur received an official message signed by the Garfield Cabinet
certifying the President’s death.
Shortly thereafter, reporters arrived at 123 Lexington Avenue to inquire
as to the Vice President’s immediate plans.
“I daren’t ask him,” replied Alec Powell, the doorkeeper. “He is sitting
alone in his room sobbing like a child with his head on his desk and his face
buried in his hands.”
Like John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, and
Andrew Johnson before him, Chet Arthur found it necessary, with one exception,
Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, to replace his entire cabinet. Most of them, including Attorney General Wayne
McVeagh, perhaps the most openly hostile to Arthur, Secretary of the Treasury
William Windom who left to seek a senate seat, and of course Secretary of State
Blaine all resigned their positions.
Blaine, the late president’s closest friend and advisor, who would
defeat Arthur and become the GOP’s presidential nominee in 1884, would
obviously never be subordinate to Chet Arthur.
Most important of all, the new president would have to walk a fine line
between Stalwart and Half Breed Republicans, neither of whom felt they could,
nor would they ever, fully trust him.
Although hardline Stalwarts pushed Arthur to nominate Roscoe Conkling to
be Secretary of State, fully realizing that to do so would seal his reputation
as a mere politician, President Arthur flatly refused. He did put some Stalwarts such as Frederick
T. Frelinghuysen as Secretary of State, Charles J. Folger as Treasury
Secretary, and Benjamin H. Brewster as Attorney General. However, when he lost his friend William
James as Postmaster General to a lucrative New York City bank position, he
replaced him with William E. Chandler, a Half Breed recommended by James
Blaine.
President Arthur’s first annual message
to Congress is interesting. Many of
these proposals wouldn’t be realized for years, but they do reflect, I think,
President Arthur’s outlook on late 19th Century America’s legitimate
needs. Here are a few items on Arthur’s
agenda:
Since the treasury was collecting
sufficient funds through the tariff, Arthur proposed a reduction on taxable
revenue except on alcohol and tobacco products.
He accepted Robert Lincoln’s
recommendation to fund the army to its 30,000-man capacity to protect settlers
from Indian attacks.
Additionally however, he called for
legislation to prevent intrusion onto Indian Territory and for assistance to
provide Indians with sufficient help to become full citizens with rights as
well as responsibilities.
He asked for revenue to establish effective
government in Alaska.
He proposed much needed updating and
reform of our Navy and Merchant Marine.
President Arthur asked for federal aid to education to assist the
literacy of southern Negroes. He called for the construction of a new building
for the Library of Congress as well as for other improvements in the District
of Columbia.
Perhaps most significantly, he called
for a review of the Electoral College process and for recommendations about the
role of the vice president. This topic
was especially important as Arthur himself had created a near crisis when he
adjourned congress before it had elected officers sufficient to succeed him had
he also been assassinated before he reached Washington to assume the
presidency.
Finally, he recommended adoption of a
Civil Service Commission.
All of these proposals should be
understood as merely that. Throughout
the 19th Century presidents were expected to execute rather than to create
laws. Not until Theodore Roosevelt some
20 years later did that expectation begin to change.
Meanwhile, Arthur began to create a
record as president. In 1882, he drew
widespread praise when he vetoed a huge rivers and harbors bill passed by
congress which he regarded as nothing more than a raid on the national
treasury. The self-indulgent congress
however passed the bill over his veto.
Also in 1882 he modified a Chinese immigration restriction bill passed
by congress because he believed the new proposal was a violation of the 1880
treaty with the Chinese government allowing us to limit but not entirely ban
Chinese immigration. The original bill
vetoed by the president restricted Chinese immigration for 20 years. Arthur insisted that such a ban be for merely
10 years. Congress concurred.
Finally, in 1883 there came passage of
the Pendleton Act creating a three man Civil Service Commission. Sponsored by Democratic Senator George
Pendleton of Ohio, the act banned politics, alcoholism and nepotism from the
civil service. No longer could
politicians solicit government employees in support of partisan
activities. President Arthur angered his
old Stalwart friends and delighted reformers when he not only signed the
measure, but appointed a long time civil service reform advocate Dorman B.
Eaton as the commission’s chairman. (Note: six years later Theodore Roosevelt
would be appointed to the Civil Service Commission in the Benjamin Harrison administration
- which was 22 years after TR’s father had been unsuccessfully nominated by
President Rutherford B. Hayes to succeed Arthur as Collector of the Port of New
York.)
Thus, the Arthur administration’s
official legacies to history, direct and indirect are: the attempt to restrain
government spending; a modified rather than a severe restriction against
Chinese immigration; the beginnings of our modern navy; and civil service
reform.; (Note: another step forward that occurred during the Arthur administration
was the designation of our four time zones for the purpose of establishing
reliable railroad schedules.)
Arthur biographer Thomas Reeves writes
that during that most painful period when Vice President Arthur realized the
gravity of the tasks and responsibility he would face should the President die,
he got a letter from a lady named Julia Sand.
Although sympathetic toward him, she wrote frankly and truthfully to
him. Here’s what she wrote in part:
“The hours of Garfield’s life are
numbered, before this meets your eye, you may be president. The people are
bowed in grief, but do you realize it, not so much that he is dying, but
because you are his successor. What president ever entered office under
circumstances so sad? The day he was
shot, the thought raised in a thousand minds was that you might be the
instigator of the foul act. Is that not a humiliation that cuts deeper than any
bullet can pierce?” Pointing out that neither his best friends nor kindest
opponents thought he could succeed under such suspicion she wrote further:
“Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a
life…If there is a spark of nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it
shine. It is not the proof of highest goodness never to have done wrong—but it
is a proof of it, sometime in one’s career, to pause and ponder, to recognize
the evil, to turn resolutely against it and devote the remainder of one’s life
to that only which is pure and exalted.
Rise to the emergency. Disappoint our fears. Force the nation to have
faith in you…Your name now is on the annals of history…You cannot slink back
into obscurity if you would…It is for you to choose whether your record will be
written in black or in gold. For the sake of your country, for your own sake
and for the sakes of all who have ever loved you, let it be pure and bright.”
Once the agony of President Garfield’s
terrible ordeal passed and the shock of Arthur’s succession wore off, Americans
began to know the real Chester Alan Arthur.
Handsome, always nattily dressed, well-mannered toward most everyone he
met, Chet Arthur was good company even to those who opposed him. “I hold no grudge against anyone who has
opposed me,” he asserted, “but I will appoint only those dedicated to my
administration.” As for Conkling,
although he refused to appoint him Secretary of State, he tried early in 1882
to appoint him to the Supreme Court. The
senate actually confirmed the nomination, but Conkling ultimately turned down
the appointment and became a permanent enemy of the president.
Social Washington delightedly attended
lavish White House dinners, many of them late night affairs. In the absence of his late wife Ellen, Mary
McElroy, his youngest sister, more than adequately hosted for her brother. His daughter Ellen, though still a child and
who was usually called Nell, charmed many dinner guests. Arthur’s first State Dinner was held in honor
of President and Mrs. Grant in 1882. The
finest wines, cigars and most elaborate flower arrangements were a part of
every Arthur social gathering.
As 1884 approached, although it became
pretty clear that the president’s reasonable evenhandedness had enabled the
administration to turn in a respectable performance, neither Half Breeds nor
Stalwarts trusted the president enough to support his efforts to obtain a term
in his own right. Then, there was his
health. He suffered from a fatal kidney
malady, Bright’s disease, which he sought to keep a secret.
Ultimately, although he ran a
reasonably respectable administration, he failed primarily as a
politician. Never comfortable with the
press, he seldom invited newsmen on his travels around the country, an amazing
failing for a politician.
Chester Alan Arthur turned the
presidency over to Grover Cleveland on Wednesday, March 4th, 1885 and returned
to New York City to practice law. Late
that year he suffered his final political humiliation when he failed to get
adequate support for election by the New York State legislature to a seat in
the U. S. Senate.
Before his death on Thursday, November
18th, 1886, he ordered all of his private papers burned, perhaps a reflection
of his bitterness over his last two political defeats.
Since reading Arthur’s story many years
ago, I’ve wondered and am still wondering if Chet Arthur’s presidency could
occur today! Are we too cynical in 2015
to let someone with such a checkered past be of service to us? Are we a better people than those who allowed
Chet Arthur to serve as president? Were
they too naive and are we realistic? Or,
might it be the other way around?
Perhaps we’re too emotionally, intellectually and spiritually
self-righteous to tolerate a mere mortal as our chief executive! An immensely human being, Chet Arthur was,
beneath his polished exterior, a very emotional man. For his sake and ultimately the nation’s sake,
he transferred his loyalty from his friends to his country. Perhaps the fact that the country didn’t return
that loyalty was the cause of that final bitterness.
Chet Arthur was not a great
president. He was ranked tenth among
“average presidents” in Arthur M. Schlesinger’s 1962 ranking of presidents
among scholars. He ranked above Dwight
Eisenhower and below Benjamin Harrison. (Note: Eisenhower has risen
considerably since that poll while Arthur ranks pretty much the same.) Arthur’s service certainly demonstrates that
some individuals can, and do, rise to the demands of national service despite
past errors. That most people were ready
to accept his service is what fascinates this student of history. Chet Arthur certainly proved to be a
remarkable person even though he may only have been an average president. Early in 1884, Mark Twain observed that
although he was only one of 55 million voters, he believed that it would be
pretty hard for anyone to govern better than had President Arthur. The fates of some of Arthur’s contemporaries
and family seem appropriate here:
Roscoe Conkling practiced law in New
York City from 1881 to 1888 when he became “the most famous victim of the
blizzard of 1888.” On Monday, March 12th
he attempted to walk three miles from his law office to his home in New York
City through the blizzard. He collapsed
at Madison Square and soon after developed pneumonia. He died on Wednesday, April 18th,1888.
James G. Blaine, although defeated by
Grover Cleveland for president in 1884, became Secretary of State under
President Benjamin Harrison and served from 1889 to 1892 when he resigned due
to what was called a nervous condition -- perhaps dementia or even Alzheimer’s
disease. Blaine died on Friday, January
27th, 1893.
Charles Guiteau claimed that his act
was “God-willed” and that he thus couldn’t be held responsible for it. He also argued that the president had died of
malpractice on the part of his doctors rather than of the shooting. He also argued that the court trying him had
no jurisdiction in the case since the president had died in Elberon, New Jersey
rather than in Washington D.C. Guiteau
was hanged for the murder of President James A. Garfield on Friday, June 30th,
1882.
Chester Alan Arthur Jr. (called Alan)
followed his father’s advice and avoided politics. However, he spent most of his life as a
well-to-do playboy. He died at age 82 on
Saturday, July 17th, 1937 in Colorado Springs, Colorado just eight days before
his 83rd birthday.
Ellen (Nell) Herndon Arthur married
Charles Pinkerton and died on Monday, September 6th, 1915, two months and fifteen
days before her 43rd birthday.
Thomas Reeves writes that on his way to
the train station to begin his presidency, Chet Arthur quoted some unpublished
lines from Tennyson an English friend had sent him:
“Not he that breaks the dams, but he
That through the channels of the State
Convoys the people’s wish, is great,
His name is pure, his fame is free.”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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