THE PRESIDENT FROM “HACKSVILLE” (PART THREE)

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

THE PRESIDENT FROM “HACKSVILLE” (PART TWO)

By Edwin Cooney

The political activities of most presidential and vice presidential candidates had less of an effect in the nineteenth century than they do today.  Except for lingering Civil War quarrels and resentments, there were few substantial differences between Republicans and Democrats. 

As Wednesday, November 3rd, 1880 dawned on 123 Lexington Avenue, the New York City home of the Vice President-Elect, Chet Arthur had 120 days to prepare for his vice presidential responsibility of presiding over the United States Senate.  President-Elect Garfield, on the other hand, faced the Herculean task of appointing a cabinet which would hopefully unite rather than divide conservative Stalwart and liberal Half-Breed sections of his party.  Two men who were not on the November ballot were James G. Blaine of Maine and Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, the recognized leaders of these party factions.  Blaine would become Secretary of State in the Garfield cabinet.  Senator Conkling, Chet Arthur’s friend and ally, would give President Garfield a monumental political migraine throughout the first four months of his administration. Secretary Blaine would be the president’s trustworthy friend and political ally.

In public, Chet Arthur was, as he had been throughout his career, affable, polished in his behavior and courteous to everyone who came in contact with him.  However, from the very outset it was obvious that high office had not altered Arthur’s behavior in politics.  As 1881 began, the vice president-elect was in Albany, New York doing all he could to make his friend Richard Crowley, of Lockport, New York, a United States senator.  In the wake of Crowley’s loss to Thomas Platt, a Republican testimonial dinner for GOP Arkansas Senator Steven W. Dorsey was held.  The dinner, at Delmonico’s in New York City, honored Dorsey for his successful management of the election in Indiana. As treasurer of the Republican National Committee, Dorsey had been given the job of engineering Republican efforts in Indiana during the late campaign. He had been successful in bringing the Hoosier state into the GOP column.

Seated at the head table with former President Grant on his immediate right and the lauded Dorsey immediately to Grant’s right, Arthur thrilled the 400 guests by acknowledging that Republicans had utilized special “secrets” to bring about a favorable result.  Avoiding specifics, Arthur merely paused as he addressed knowledge of that “secret” as his audience laughingly asserted what that secret must have been.  The code word for money in GOP secret communications had been “soap.”  Thus, everyone knew what GOP special tactics and secrets amounted to during Arthur’s pregnant pauses.  “Soap! Soap! Soap!” chanted that well-healed GOP audience as the vice president-elect smiled knowingly throughout his remarks and reporters looked on.  By Friday, March 4th, 1881, Garfield’s and Arthur’s Inauguration Day, much of the nation regarded their 51-year-old vice president as the politician he truly was.

As Chet Arthur took his place as presiding officer of the U.S. Senate, there were 37 Republicans and 37 Democrats plus two independents holding office in that “most deliberative body.”  The two independents split their loyalties between the two parties thereby increasing the vice president’s potential power.   Thus, in the event of a tie, Arthur had the deciding vote.  Within weeks of the inauguration, the old struggle for control of the New York Republican Party (which                      just three years earlier had cost Arthur his job and tarnished Senator Conkling’s pride) was freshly renewed.  In mid March, Conkling, summoned to the White House by the president, was informed that five of his favorites would be appointed attorneys, marshals and collector of Buffalo.  When Conkling inquired about the Collectorship of the Port of New York, the president urged him to leave the subject alone just then.  However, the following day when Vice President Arthur was handed a list of presidential appointments while presiding, he discovered the name of William Robertson of Jamestown, New York to be the president’s choice to be Collector of the Port of New York.  Robertson was a bitter enemy of Conkling’s and an ally of Secretary Blaine.  As Commerce Committee chairman, Conkling was determined to block Robertson’s nomination.  Throughout March, April and early May, there were efforts to talk the president out of the Robertson nomination.  On Wednesday, April 14th, Vice President Arthur, in a long meeting with the president, urged him to withdraw the Robertson nomination and appoint Robertson to another position in New York State.  The president politely but firmly refused.

Conkling asserted in a speech before his colleagues on the senate commerce committee that he had a document that would cause the president “to bite the dust.” While he insisted he prayed to God he wouldn’t have to release it, he said he would do so if necessary in defense of his stance against the president’s appointment of Robertson.  When informed of Conkling’s threat, Garfield, after only a short pause, released a copy of the letter itself.  All it turned out to be was a casual inquiry during the previous campaign about the political fortunes of Thomas Brady who was being investigated for his part in a national scandal.  By mid May, it was clear that Conkling was going to lose to Garfield as he had to Hayes.  As he saw it, the only way Conkling could regain his authority would be to win immediate re-election by the New York State Legislature.  Thus, on Monday, May 16th, 1881, Roscoe Conkling and his New York Senate colleague, the newly elected Thomas Platt, resigned their U.S. Senate seats.  Thus, the Republicans automatically lost their senate majority.  With Conkling and Platt gone, the senate confirmed Robertson two days later.  As things stood, if the senate organized under the Democrats with their new majority, a Democrat rather than a Republican would be president of the senate and in line for the presidency behind Arthur himself.  Hence, Conkling and Platt went back to Albany followed by the vice president.  From Tuesday May 31st through Friday, July 1st, the two former senators sought re-election with Arthur’s aid.  Late in the effort, Thomas Platt was discovered living with a woman who wasn’t his wife.  Therefore, as Roscoe Conkling and Chester Alan Arthur headed to New York City from Albany on the morning of Saturday, July 2nd, 1881, Conkling was the only one still scheming to retain his seat in the United States Senate.

Upon their arrival in New York, they learned that at approximately nine-thirty that morning, President Garfield had been shot as he strolled through the Baltimore and Union railroad station arm-in-arm with Secretary Blaine.  A shabbily dressed little man named Charles Giteau had fired twice at the president.  The first bullet grazed the president’s arm, but the second bullet lodged in his back near his spinal column.  Even worse, Giteau had declared “I am a Stalwart of Stalwarts. Now, Arthur is president.”  Horrified by the president’s fate and alarmed about his own, Chet Arthur was to be quite a different man politically if not personally.

Urged by Secretary of State Blaine to come to Washington, Arthur visited the White House a week later.  Although he apparently didn’t see the president, he did visit Lucritia Garfield.  By then, it was pretty clear that Charles Giteau was not part of a conspiracy as some had speculated.  Neither Arthur nor Conkling’s personal and political opponents, however they felt about either man, suspected them of plotting against President Garfield.  As the president’s health appeared to improve in mid July, Chet Arthur asserted, “The better the president feels, the better I feel.”

James A. Garfield, who was once a vigorous man with Lincolnesque muscles and who also possessed the intellectual capacities Jefferson, both Adams and Lincoln, spent 79 days in terrible agony.  Each time he rallied, his doctors would probe his wound with unsanitary fingers.  The weather in Washington was tropical and several tons of ice were shipped in to keep the president somewhat cool under fans.  At one point, Alexander Graham Bell, who had invented a Geiger counter, visited the president to see if the bullet could be detected, but he was unsuccessful.  By September 1^st, new infections had set in and parts of the president’s face were actually rotting away.

Meanwhile, the vice president remained in seclusion at 123 Lexington Avenue.  Periodically, contemplating the possibility that he might become president, he’d burst into tears.  As for Conkling, by late July it became clear that he could not retain his senate seat.  Thus, the New York State legislature elected one Half-Breed congressman, Warner Miller, and one Stalwart Congressman, Elbridge Lapham, to the two United States Senate seats originally held by Conkling and Platt.  Miller would fill Platt’s term while Lapham would hold Conkling’s seat.

At 10:35 on the night of September 19th, 1881, James Abram Garfield breathed his last.  The president died at Elberon, New Jersey where Mrs. Garfield had gone earlier in the year to recover from malaria and where the president had been moved on September 1st with the hope that the fresh salt sea air would cure him.  Only a short time before, he had spoken his last words to David H. Swaim, his Chief of Staff, “Oh Swaim,” gasped the president “can’t you do anything about this pain? “Oh, Swaim!”

It was 11:30 pm in New York when Vice President Arthur received the word from a messenger that President Garfield had passed away.

President Arthur was sworn in by New York State Judge John R. Brady at 2:15 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, September 20th, 1881.

All of President Garfield’s ordeals were over.  President Arthur’s ordeals were about to begin.

To be continued.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE PRESIDENT FROM HACKSVILLE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5TH, 2015

By Edwin Cooney

Today, October 5th, 2015, marks the 186th anniversary of the birth of the most successful pure politician in American history.  No president before or since Chester Alan Arthur has owed his accession to the presidency solely to politics.  Every other occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s executive mansion, before and since Chet Arthur, has used his political career before the presidency to some social benefit.  Not Chet Arthur.  Hence, due to his reputation as a “political hack,” he was in big trouble even before assuming that most troublesome of public offices — the presidency of the United States of America.

Arthur was born on Monday, October 5th, 1829 (late in life he insisted that he was born in 1830) in Fairfield, Vermont, the son of an Irish-born immigrant father William Arthur and Malvina (Stone) Arthur.  Chet Arthur was handsome, charming, affable, a marvelous raconteur and an excellent administrator.  Arthur entered New York society in the 1850s having graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York in 1848.  He received his law degree in 1854 and became the junior partner of Culver, Parker and Arthur in New York City.  The son of an adamantly abolitionist preacher father, Arthur represented a black woman named Lizzie Jennings when she brought suit against a whites-only Brooklyn streetcar company which had forcibly ejected her from one of its vehicles.  Arthur won an award of $500 for Ms. Jennings, and, even more significant, that suit led to the end of all discrimination against blacks on New York public transit systems.  For the most part however, Chet Arthur was anxious to fit into high society.  To that end, he joined the right clubs, married a southern belle, Ellen Lewis Herndon, who was a well-known singer and a member of New York’s Glee Club, and above all joined the growing New York Republican Party.  Miss Herndon’s father, a ship captain, gained for himself and his surviving family considerable national fame in 1857 when he deliberately went down with his ship after saving all the passengers and crew during a severe storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

The Civil War brought young Chet Arthur notoriety for his considerable administrative skills as well as for his personal integrity.  As assistant engineer, chief engineer, assistant Quartermaster General and eventually chief Quartermaster General, Chet Arthur kept the New York State Militia adequately supplied with munitions, other equipment and transportation facilities between 1861 and 1863.  New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan asserted that he depended on young Chet Arthur for all the reliable facilities for equipping the New York State Militia during the war.  Even more interesting, Morgan observed that Arthur had the rare ability to say “no” without giving offense — a most invaluable political tool.  They remained cordial lifelong friends.

Following the war, Arthur became increasingly and effectively involved in Republican Party politics at both the city and state levels.  A supporter of the conservative or “Stalwart” wing of the GOP, Arthur backed the candidacies of Congressman Roscoe Conkling for the U.S. Senate and of course General Ulysses S. Grant’s 1868 bid for President.  He had supported Lincoln in both 1860 and 1864 and was behind the move to make Andrew Johnson Vice President in 1864.  (What his stand was in 1868 when Johnson was being impeached by radical Republicans is not recorded even by Thomas Reeves, his authoritative biographer.  Political bosses, Arthur included, weren’t philosophers or social do-gooders.  They worked solely for the party’s success.)  When in 1871 Chet Arthur accepted the collectorship of the Port of New York, he well understood that he’d be judged not only by the revenue from import dues, the primary responsibility of the customs house, but for another very vital task.  It was his job to see to it that his employees adequately financed the endeavors of the GOP machine that had secured their employment.

The close election of Ohio Governor Rutherford Burchard Hayes, a powerfully built, thickly red-bearded teetotaler, ended the era of southern reconstruction.  The fate of American blacks had been surrendered to Jim Crow.  Still President Hayes, a man of deeply held Methodist principles, needed a moral cause.  Hence, he chose civil service reform.  To that end, he established a commission to investigate possible corruption in America’s customs houses — especially the Port of New York.  The commission called Arthur as its main witness.  Try as he did during his testimony, Arthur was unable to convince the commission to abandon a recommendation to end the practice of requiring employees to give back portions of their annual salaries to finance the party which had provided their employment in the first place.  The commission found no corruption on Arthur’s part, but it recommended a thorough housecleaning of the agency.  Next came the political crisis.

An ongoing dispute between the executive and legislative branches of the government was political patronage.  Presidents were, and still are, expected to pay attention to senators and representatives in a state wherein federal appointees function.  By dismissing Chet Arthur, the President was picking a territorial quarrel with Senator Roscoe Conkling who would surely oppose anyone nominated to succeed Arthur.  When the president nominated Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. to succeed Arthur, the nomination was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 31-25.  (Sadly, Theodore Roosevelt soon thereafter died of intestinal cancer while his namesake son was a student at Harvard.)  President Hayes offered to make Chet Arthur counsel to the American legation at Paris.  When Arthur refused the appointment, undoubtedly as ordered by Senator Conkling, the President moved.  On Thursday, July 11th, 1878, President Hayes used his authority to finally dismiss Arthur; there was nothing either Conkling or Arthur could do.

Between July of 1878 and June of 1880, Chet Arthur practiced law, although according to biographer Reeves, he really wasn’t much of a lawyer.  His new firm was Arthur, Phelps, Knevels and Ransom.

As Republicans met in Chicago to nominate a presidential candidate for 1880, the party was divided into conservative Stalwarts and liberal Half Breeds.  The Half Breeds split their support between Ohio Senator John Sherman and Maine Senator James G. Blaine while the Stalwarts were strongly supporting Ulysses S. Grant for a third term.  After 35 ballots, General Grant had 306 votes, about 78 votes shy of the nomination.  On the 36th ballot, Garfield was nominated with 399 votes, 42 for Blaine, 5 for Elihu Washington of Illinois and 2 for Senator John Sherman.

Needing Stalwart support to win the election, Garfield offered Levi P. Morton the vice presidential nomination, but was turned down.  Then he decided to ask Chet Arthur.  Arthur would be advised by an angry Roscoe Conkling to turn down the offer “…as you would drop a hot horseshoe from the forge.”  Arthur reportedly responded: “The vice presidency is a higher honor than I’ve ever dreamed of attaining.  I therefore will accept the nomination and I shall carry the New York delegation with me.”

The presidential campaign was close between James A. Garfield and General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania and William English of Indiana.  The turning point of the campaign was a meeting on Friday, August 5th in New York between Garfield, Arthur and other members of the New York Stalwart machine, the purpose of which was to agree how both sides would settle questions of patronage once Garfield was elected.  Conkling did not attend the meeting, but everyone came away sufficiently satisfied to work for the ticket.

November 2nd 1880 was Election Day.  Garfield and Arthur received 4,454,416 votes.  That was 48.6% of the popular vote.  Hancock and English received 4,444,592 votes, 48.2% of the votes.  In the Electoral College, Garfield and Arthur received 214 votes to Hancock and English’s 155.

The Garfield Arthur team was elected.  What neither fully understood was that the political fat was in the fire.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2015

YOGI — THE BIG LITTLE FELLOW!

There are occasions that compel one to fall in line with everyone else. Hence, this week I’m doing exactly that.  Like countless writers all over America, I’m paying a fond tribute to a remarkable human being. I’m doing so with gladness and sadness, with a smile and a tear, with longing for yesteryear, but as one who is at peace with the completion of the “Yogi Berra story.”

The story began on Tuesday, May 12th, 1925 in the Italian working class section of St. Louis, Missouri.  The third of four children born to bricklayer Pietro and Paulina Berra, his full name was Lawrence Peter Berra.  His original nickname given by Mama Berra was “Lawdie.”  The nickname we all know and love, Yogi, was given to him as a teenager by Bobby Hoffman, a neighbor boy.  After seeing a movie featuring an Indian snake charmer, young Hoffman (who also later played major league baseball in New York for the Giants) remarked that the Indian Yogi snake charmer “walks and looks just like Lawdie Berra.”  The name stuck.

Yogi’s best friend growing up in St. Louis was Joe Garagiola who was born on Friday, February 12th, 1926, a little less than seven months after Yogi.  At age 16, Joe was offered a $500 contract to sign with the hometown St. Louis Cardinals.  The Cards offered Yogi $250 to sign also, but Yogi turned them down.  Following the Yankee’s loss to the Cardinals in the 1942 World Series, the Yankees offered 17-year-old Yogi Berra $500 to sign with them and Berra snapped it up.  Ironically, it was Joe Garagiola who was the first to play in a World Series. The next year, Yogi played in the 1947 series against the Brooklyn Dodgers and made a name for himself in World Series history.  In the third game held at Ebbets Field on Thursday, October 2nd, 1947, Yogi became the first player in World Series history to hit a pinch-hit home run.  It was a solo shot in the seventh inning off Ralph Branca.  Yogi played in fourteen World Series of which the Yankees won ten.  During a banquet speech in 1954, Joe Garagiola quipped, “You know, Yogi has never really experienced the finer things in life. For instance, Yogi has never watched a World Series game on television!”

Just before spring training in 1949, Yogi married Carmen Short, a pretty young St. Louis waitress.  They went on to have three sons, Tim, Larry and Dale.  Dale would one day briefly play shortstop for the New York Yankees while his father was the Yankee’s manager.

Yogi’s easygoing way often masked his competitive intensity, an essential aspect of anyone’s personality who competed as successfully as Yogi did throughout his eighteen seasons as a Yankee catcher and occasional outfielder.  As entertaining and thought-provoking as Yogi’s observations and malapropisms came to be, they made an impression because of his success as a top flight professional on a continuously successful championship team.

Perhaps in recent years former opponents such as Carl Erskine, Hank Aaron, Bill Mazeroski, Willie Mays and even Sandy Koufax have chuckled at Yogi Berra stories and Yogi-isms along with the rest of us, but you can bet your Topps Yogi Berra baseball card that there was nothing funny when the 5 foot 7 inch, 195 pound Yogi Berra stepped to the plate -- especially when the bases were occupied by his Yankee teammates.  Although Yogi wasn’t built like your prototype athlete, he was as quick as a cat behind home plate. In fact, he was sufficiently fast enough on the bases to score from first base on a double. Although he stole only 30 bases during his nineteen major league seasons, his speed was adequate enough to cover enough real estate in the outfield to justify keeping his late 30’s bat in the early 1960s Yankee’s lineup with Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Bill Skowron and Elston Howard.

Yogi was dead serious on the diamond, but off the field he demonstrated almost daily what his great Brooklyn Dodger catching opponent Roy Campanella observed about baseball players: “You’ve got to have a lot of little boy in you to play this game!”

Thus, Yogi was a natural to advertise the chocolate drink Yoohoo and he was enough of a celebrity to do commercials for Camel cigarettes and The Money Store along with his friend and fellow Yankee Phil Rizzuto.

Since everyone is sharing Yogi stories in part to ease their sadness, here are a few of my favorites.

It was especially hot during spring training in 1957.  After a game one day, Yogi emerged from the Yankee clubhouse in a seersucker suit.  Spying Yogi, the wife of Yankee’s owner Dan Topping, a gorgeous beauty, asserted,   “You look nice and cool, Yogi!”  Yogi’s response was: “You don’t look so hot yourself, Mrs. Topping!”

One day when Carmen Berra was out of the house and Yogi was home with his three boys, there was a knock at the door.  One of the boys called to his father who was upstairs to tell him that two men were at the door about the “venetian blind.”  Yogi, apparently thinking that the two gentlemen were soliciting for the blind people of Venice, Italy replied, “Ah, give ’em a couple of bucks and send ’em on their way!”

During the off-season between 1984 and 1985, Yogi’s lifelong pal Joe Garagiola dropped by the house for an evening of food, perhaps a few libations, and some baseball talk.  Yogi proceeded to tell Joe about what it was like to manage under the notorious George M. Steinbrenner.  There were stories about their differing evaluations of players.  There were stories about late night and early morning calls from the boss over changes in the lineup.  Finally, there were Steinbrenner’s complaints about Yogi’s strategies during games.  The more Yogi talked, the hotter Joe got in defense of his old friend.  Finally, Joe told Yogi that he ought to remind the owner about which one of them actually played major league baseball.  Joe further advised Yogi to remind “the boss” who it was who had managed World Series games and was in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  “You’ve gotta tell him off,” Joe finally insisted with considerable heat.  Yogi took another sip of his drink and replied:  “Aw, no, Joey, I can’t do that. George and I just agree different!”

Yogi and Carmen were very close.  She was always looking out for Yogi’s best interests.  Although she rejected the idea of naming their firstborn Yogi, Jr, she herself always called her husband “Yogi.”  However, according to Joe Garagiola, after 30 years of marriage, Carmen received an anniversary card signed “Yogi Berra.”  “Why,” she demanded of her husband, “do you sign your last name to my anniversary card?  Do you think I might get an anniversary card from another Yogi?”

Yogi’s life, as magical as it seems to have been at times, had its low points.  There was his childhood poverty, the gibes he took as a young player from teammates and other players for his looks and undoubtedly for his ethnicity.  There was the shabby treatment he received after the 1964 World Series when he was suddenly and dramatically fired by Yankee General Manager Ralph Houk.  There was the cold way George Steinbrenner fired him in 1985 which caused Yogi to stay away from Yankee Stadium for fourteen years. Finally, there was the disappointment Yogi must have experienced as a parent and a professional when his son Dale was charged with using drugs during the 1980s.

Mostly, however, there has been that special magic.  That magic consists of an abiding trust, respect, and love from his fellow professionals, as well as from plain people everywhere who appreciate that combination of talent, hard work, and wisdom which that big little fellow from that working class hill in St. Louis demonstrated throughout 69 years.

Yogi Berra first appeared in a major league game on Sunday, September 22nd, 1946.  On Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 at age 90 years plus 143 days, Yogi passed into another dimension beyond our ken.

His plaque is in The National Baseball Hall of Fame.  However, his deeds will remain in all of our hearts as long as we live!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

KIM DAVIS — HEROINE OR HOLLERER?

By Edwin Cooney

Try to set aside whether you concur or reject her cause.  Is Kim Davis a genuine heroine or is she merely a “hollerer”?  It isn’t simply a question of agreement with Mrs. Davis’s moral outrage.  It is rather a question of the substance of her behavior.  Kim Davis did after all risk the comfort of anonymity and her personal freedom from incarceration by challenging the writ of the highest court in the land.  She took a risk most of us wouldn’t take.  By so doing she has, without a doubt, subjected herself and others close to her to the discomfort of personal ridicule, and even threats to her well-being.  One should readily grant that to put one’s self into such a position takes courage.  Courage is, of course, an essential element of heroism. The question, therefore, is twofold: Is the price she’s willing to pay equal to the damage caused by the consequences of her defiance?  (In other words, is she willingly paying an adequate price for defying the law of the land?) Second, is her defiance a question of principle or politics?

Had Kim Davis defied the ruling and then resigned her position, she would have demonstrated as much principle as defiance.  However, by not resigning her position and thus retaining its pecuniary compensation, she benefited from the privileges she has as an officer of the very legal system she regards as guilty of an immoral act.

There are two other factors that haven’t been adequately covered in the reports I’ve seen on the controversy created by Mrs. Davis.

Let’s assume for a moment that gay and lesbian marriage is an abomination of Christian doctrine.  Is Mrs. Davis responsible or accountable for the souls of others?  Additionally, where in scripture is it stated that nations as entities have any moral accountability?  Even though the “almighty” destroyed ancient Israel for its sins, modern Israel not only exists, it possesses atomic bombs sufficient to give any modern day Babylonia one hell-of-a jolt.  Perhaps our leaders as individuals are subject to spiritual rewards and punishments, but insofar as I’m aware, America as an entity is beyond payment of the wages of sin.  If not, America is in real trouble because many of the most devoutly righteous among us still insist that we need be neither humble nor apologetic about the employment of slavery against blacks or the genocide against native Americans which we utilized to assist us in becoming so prosperous.

Another aspect of Kim Davis’s defiance that doesn’t get enough play is how her defiance of the law is noble yet the defiance of our immigration laws by the refugees from other nations is punishable by deportation.

Compliance of the law is a vital factor in our unity, our prosperity and even our safety.  Defiance of the law is only noble when the person who defies the law asserts three factors:

(1.) That the law or ruling in question has passed the test of legal legitimacy and is primarily a matter of recognizable and reasonable morality.

(2.) That the legitimate rights of no person will be damaged by your advocacy of the current law’s elimination.

(3.) That the advocacy of a change or changes in the present law doesn’t nearly represent self-righteous contempt for the opinions and values of others.

Mrs. Davis’s contention passes the first of the above assertions.  There’s no doubt of her sincerity on moral grounds!  As for numbers two and three, Kim Davis’s actions fail to meet their test.  The legitimate rights of gays and lesbians would be damaged if her defiance should be upheld.  As for the third test of arrogant self-righteousness, the politicization of Mrs. Davis’s contentiousness on the part of a number of the current GOP candidates makes their perception as to the superiority of Mrs. Davis’s stand obvious. Therein lies a blatant inconsistency on the part of most of the GOP presidential candidates: immigrants fleeing political terror in their homeland who violate our laws should be subject to deportation. Mrs. Davis’s defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling which constitutes the law of the land should be applauded as good old-fashioned patriotism. I say that’s nuts!

History may well compare Mrs. Davis’s act to that of John Scopes who agreed in 1924 to participate in a test case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging Tennessee’s Butler Act which made it a misdemeanor to teach evolution in the state’s public schools.  Unlike Kim Davis, Scopes appears to have had no deep convictions on the morality or immorality of the teaching of evolution.  Thus Scopes (unlike Mrs. Davis) fails the first of the three above assertions.  However, his act was neither a threat nor was it contemptuous of the rights of others.  History records an irony here.  The only politician prominent in the case against Scopes was a lawyer for the prosecution, the three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan.

I’ve never met anyone who regarded John Scopes as a hero. As for Mrs. Davis, whether a heroine or a hollerer, you can be sure of one thing:

To paraphrase the late great Lloyd Bentsen in his 1988 Vice Presidential debate with his Senate colleague Dan Quayle — “Kim Davis never knew John Scopes.  Kim Davis was never a friend of John Scopes.  And Kim Davis is no John Scopes!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE PRESIDENTS WE ELECT

By Edwin Cooney

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a commentary on why we have elected some of our most effective presidents.  This week, I propose to focus on the brands of presidents we’ve elected.  The question is: does Donald J. Trump fit in?

Under the United States Constitution, the President is the head of the Executive Branch of the government as well as Commander-In-Chief of our armed forces.  The establishment of the presidency, its offices and its prerogatives, was the primary business of every president between George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt from 1789 through 1901.  To that end, we elected two types -- or brands -- of presidents. The general or war hero presidents I call Brand One. The lawyer or legislator presidents were Brand Two.  Washington, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison and even William McKinley were regarded as war heroes.  The two Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Van Buren, Pierce, Buchanan and Lincoln were lawyer/legislator presidents.  These two traditional “presidential types” were generally administrative with the general mission to expand our national domain and maintain our national safety, stability, and prosperity.

Suddenly, there came a bolt out of the blue: Theodore Roosevelt.  Like four previous vice presidents, John Tyler of Virginia, Millard Fillmore of New York, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, and Chester A. Arthur of New York, Roosevelt merely succeeded to the presidency.  In the nomenclature of the day, he was our fifth accidental president or “…another version of his accidency!”

It was September 1902 when the Anthracite coal miners union went out on strike.  They threatened that if their demands consisting of a wage increase and national recognition of their union weren’t met, millions of people, especially in the northeast, would feel the chill of Jack Frost right around Election Day of 1902.  Republicans who were adamantly anti-union needed to be re-elected. Teddy Roosevelt needed them to be re-elected in order to be electable in his own right as president in 1904.  His four previous “accidental” predecessors had failed to be elected in their own right.  TR would change all that by involving the traditional prestige of his presidential office in an issue that had social, economic, and political repercussions.  Having suffered a severe leg injury in a recent carriage accident that had resulted in one death, TR dramatically appeared in a wheelchair to publicly recognize the legitimacy of the strike.  The office of the president would no longer be a mere administrative office from that time on.  Thereafter, in one way or another, the President of the United States of America had to be a problem solver.  The immediate strike emergency would go to arbitration during which the anthracite coal miners would return to work.  Even if the legitimacy of the union movement was three decades away, the nation had a new phenomenon — expected presidential activism.

In the wake of the unpredictable Teddy Roosevelt, we elected an attorney without legislative experience named William Howard Taft, and a college professor (Woodrow Wilson). We also elected Warren Harding (a newspaper man), Calvin Coolidge (a lawyer and a governor), Herbert Hoover (a mining engineer and philanthropic businessman), Franklin Roosevelt (an aristocratic political experimentalist), and Harry Truman, the first president since Andrew Johnson to lack a college education. Then we elected still another war hero and general we simply called Ike.  Ike’s successors, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Obama attained the presidency by the inspirational light of one or more predecessors.

As I see it, what makes the Trump candidacy unique and ensures its potential demise is its apparent total lack of connection with or even respect for the experiences and forces that compelled the sum and substance of both our past and present.  So far, Mr. Trump appears to believe that he can solve all problems by merely ordering them to be solved.  His candidacy, so far at least, glorifies fear, nurtures frustration, and feeds political activism with little more than suspicion.  The energy of his candidacy is indignation.  Still, that may indeed be enough to secure the nomination of the 21st Century Republican Party which has been venting its spleen since the night Barack Obama became president-elect and addressed that jubilant celebration in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. I’m convinced that Mr. Trump will have to rise above his own sense of self and his own reckless willfulness in order to actually achieve the presidency.

As of this writing, most people agree that Hillary Rodham Clinton has had a terrible summer.  If Mr. Trump doesn’t change course in some spectacular way, come Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, he’s going to make Hillary’s day.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY