The New Nation

by Frederic L. Paxson

But the audiences were unresponsive. An old political reporter remembers being in the national headquarters late in the campaign, and hearing Blaine, who had been stumping for Garfield, say, "You want to fold up the bloody shirt and lay it away. It's of no use to us. You want to shift the main issue to protection." Not until the campaign was nearly over did a real issue emerge.

The protective tariff had not played a large part in any campaign since 1860. In 1868 and 1872 both parties had looked forward to the reduction of revenue to a peace basis, adopting mild planks to that effect. In 1876 the topic had been more prominent in the platforms, but not in the canvass. In 1880 Hancock was questioned on the tariff during one of his speeches. The question was probably unpremeditated, but it took the candidate unaware, for as an officer in the regular army he had never given the matter thought. His evasive answer, that the tariff was a local issue only, gave an opening to his opponents, who forced the tariff to a prominent place in the few remaining days before election. They made much of Hancock's ignorance, and perhaps by this maneuver offset the disadvantage done to Garfield by a forged letter, which purported to show him as a friend of cheap labor and Chinese immigration. Garfield and Arthur were elected by a small plurality over Hancock. No one received a popular majority, for a third candidate, named Weaver, headed a Greenback-Labor ticket and polled 308,000 votes.

General James A. Garfield would have become Senator from Ohio in 1881 had not his election transferred him to the Presidency. The fifty years of his life covered a career that was typically American. The son of a New England emigrant, he was born in the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio. He worked his way from the farm through the log school to college. His service on the towpath of the Ohio Canal, in the course of his education, became a strong adjunct to his popularity among the common people. He taught Latin and Greek after leaving college, studied law, worked into politics, and went to the front upon the call for troops. He left the war a major-general to enter Congress, in 1863, where he sat until his election to the Senate in 1880. He was the friend of John Sherman and had been the manager of his campaign. Like his friend, and like most Ohio Republicans, he believed that the tariff was one of the bases of prosperity in his State. In his campaign a young Cleveland merchant named Hanna raised funds among the local manufacturers on the plea that Republican success and their interests would go hand in hand. In his inaugural address, however, Garfield said nothing of the new issue which was threatening to enter politics, but dwelt upon the supremacy of law, the status of the South, hard money, religious freedom, and the civil service.

The Republican party had been left broken and in hostile camps by President Hayes; Garfield tried in his Cabinet to change this and "to have a party behind him." The State Department went to his rival and ally, Blaine, whose personal following was larger than that of any other American politician. The independent Republicans, who had seceded in 1872 and had muttered ever since, were pleased by the elevation of Wayne MacVeagh, a Pennsylvania lawyer, to the post of Attorney-General. A friend of Conkling, who had made a striking record in the New York Post-Office through two terms, Thomas L. James, became Postmaster-General. The sensibilities of the West, always jealous of the East in matters of finance, were appeased by the selection of William L. Windom, of Minnesota, as Secretary of the Treasury, for "any Eastern man would be accused of being an agent or tool of the 'money kings' and 'gold-bugs' of New York and Europe." The Cabinet as a whole was received with favor, but the harmony which its members promised was soon disturbed.

The appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State, which Garfield had determined upon a few days after his election, was a blow to Roscoe Conkling. Hayes had struck at Conkling in removing Arthur and Cornell. Now when Garfield decided to please himself in the New York collectorship, Conkling saw in the act the hand of Blaine. He fell back upon the practice of senatorial courtesy, and held up the confirmation of the appointment. When he found himself unable to coerce the President, he broke with him as he had broken with Hayes, and this time he and his colleague from New York, Thomas Collier Platt, resigned their seats and appealed to the New York Legislature, then in session. The move was not without promise. Cornell was now Governor of New York. Arthur, with the prestige of the Vice-Presidency, left his chair in the Senate to work for the reëlection and triumphant return of Conkling and Platt, on the doctrine that the appointments of a President must be personally acceptable to the Senators from the State concerned. But the New York Legislature failed to give the martyrs their vindication, and permitted them to remain in private life. Their friends, the "Stalwarts," ceased to support Garfield.

James, who was not enough a follower of Conkling to emulate him, remained in the Post-Office, where he had already found wholesale corruption. It had been the practice of the Post-Office to classify the mail routes according to their method of transportation, and to mark those running by stage or rider by a star on the general list. These had come to be known as the "star routes." The contracts for the star routes were flexible in order to meet the shifting needs of the Western population that lived away from railways and depended upon the stage-coach. When the business of any route justified a better service than it was receiving, the Department was at liberty to increase the service, hasten speed, and raise the pay without a re-letting of the contract. During the latter seventies the growth of settlement throughout the remoter West had justified a large increase in star-route costs, but James discovered not only legitimate increase but collusive fraud. The official in charge, in collusion with former Congressmen who "knew the ropes," and with the mail contractors, had awarded original contracts to low bidders who had no intention of fulfilling their bids. After the letting of contracts the compensation had been increased without investigation or reference to actual needs.

The unearned profits had been shared by the promoters and the dishonest officials, and some of it had gone into the Republican campaign fund. A former Senator, Dorsey by name, who was indicted for fraud in 1882, had been Secretary of the Republican National Committee in 1880, and had been hurried to Indiana to save that State. He did this so effectively that his friends gave him a dinner, which Arthur attended, and at which the allusions to his methods in Indiana were but loosely veiled. Brady, the official in the Post-Office, had collected the usual assessments on federal office-holders for Garfield's campaign fund. When he and others were threatened with criminal prosecution they produced letters by which they hoped to prove that Garfield was cognizant of and had approved their financial methods. How far they might have succeeded in blackening the President and stopping his prosecutions must remain unknown, for he was shot on July 2, 1881, while on his way to a college celebration, and died on September 19.

The murderer of Garfield declared to the policeman who arrested him, "I am a Stalwart and want Arthur for President." It was soon learned that he was a disappointed candidate for office, and irresponsible Washington gossip soon had it that Garfield's friends wanted him to hang, while Arthur's thought he was only insane. The murderer's sister, in an incoherent book based on his story, asserted, "Yes, the 'Star-Route' business killed Garfield! The claim, 'The Stalwarts are my friends,' hung Guiteau!" He was perhaps insane, and was certainly irresponsible, but his crime, coming simultaneously with the notoriety of the star-route frauds and the demands of Conkling, emphasized the pettiness of factions and the need for a reform in the civil service.

The illness of Garfield dragged on through eleven weeks in the summer of 1881, with bulletins one day up and the next down. The strain told on every one in the Administration. The prospect of Arthur's succession called attention to the fact that the Vice-President is rarely nominated for fitness, but is chosen at the end of a hot convention, in carelessness, or to placate a losing side. It led soon to the passage of an adequate Presidential Succession Act. The death of Garfield threw the control to the Republican faction that disliked him most.

Blaine, the head of Garfield's Cabinet, was most directly affected by the catastrophe. He had stepped from the Senate into the State Department at Garfield's request. While he was a receptive candidate for the Presidency this post suited his needs and gratified his taste. He loved business and liked to associate with men. He had a diplomatic vision that led him to formulate a more constructive policy than most Secretaries have had.