The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States / Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

by John Clark Ridpath

In another letter to Colonel Rockwell, he speaks from his heart:

“I think of you as away, and in an elysium of quiet and peace, where I should love to be, out of the storm and in the sunshine of love and books. Do not think from the above that I am despondent. There is life and hope and fight in your old friend yet.”

It is hardly possible to understand the tortures which his sensitive nature underwent at this time. To an honest man the worst pain comes from the poisoned dagger of mistrust. At a later day, General Garfield was to make his defense to his constituents.

During this plague of heart and brain, there was no remission of the enormous activity in the chosen field of finance, revenue, and expenditure. But we can only plant foot upon the mountain peaks as we pass over the Alps of General Garfield’s Congressional labors. March 5, 1874, he delivered another great speech on “Revenues and Public Expenditures.”

On April 8, 1874, the first great “inflation” bill, by which the effects of the terrible panic of 1873 were to be relieved or cured, came up for discussion. General Garfield exhausted history in his opposition to the bill. It must be remembered that his constituents were clamoring for the passage of this bill which was to make money plenty. Taking his political life in his hand, he fought it with all his power. As in 1866, 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1871, so, in 1874, he said that “next to the great achievements of the nation in putting down the rebellion, destroying its cause, and reuniting the Republic on the principle of liberty and equal rights to all, is the task of paying the fabulous expenses of the war, the funding of the debt, the maintenance of public credit, and the launching of the nation on its career of prosperity.” The speech contains citations of authority against inflation and irredeemable paper currency from John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Franklin, R. H. Lee, Washington, Adams, Peletiah Webster, Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Webster, Gonge, Calhoun, and Chase. The reader will remember that the measure passed the House and the Senate by overwhelming majorities, but was struck dead by the veto of President Grant.

On June 23, 1874, General Garfield spoke at length on the subject of appropriations for the year. In this address, as in all others upon this topic, he handled figures and statistics with the greatest skill and familiarity. The House had come to rely upon his annual speech on this subject for its information on the expenses of the Government.

Almost at the same time he delivered a speech on the Railway Problem. The pending question was upon making certain appropriations for River, Harbor, and Canal Surveys, as a preliminary to cheaper transportation. General Garfield endeavored to have a similar commission organized on the Railway question. He felt that any investigation of cheap transportation was lame which did not include “the greatest of our modern means of transportation, the Railway.” We quote a part of his discussion, which must be of interest to every reader:

THE RAILWAY PROBLEM.

“We are so involved in the events and movements of society that we do not stop to realize—what is undeniably true—that during the last forty years all modern societies have entered upon a period of change, more marked, more pervading, more radical than any that has occurred during the last three hundred years. In saying this, I do not forget our own political and military history, nor the French Revolution of 1793. The changes now taking place have been wrought, and are being wrought, mainly, almost wholly, by a single mechanical contrivance, the steam locomotive. There are many persons now living who well remember the day when Andrew Jackson, after four weeks of toilsome travel from his home in Tennessee, reached Washington and took his first oath of office as President of the United States. On that day, the railway locomotive did not exist. During that year, Henry Clay was struggling to make his name immortal by linking it with the then vast project of building a national road—a turnpike—from the national capital to the banks of the Mississippi.

“In the autumn of that very year George Stephenson ran his first experimental locomotive, the ‘Rocket,’ from Manchester to Liverpool and back. The rumble of its wheels, redoubled a million times, is echoing to-day on every continent.