The Founders Show #482

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Bide holes, politicians addressed a digitdatas and magicians trust you see the money,
then you don't. There's nothing tofeel the holes while then feel in
their pockets bide holes. The politiciansbouncing down the road, every bid tuition

(00:25):
to no more corruption and dysfunction.It's gone a day. Divide of ben
shows. Imagine in America where theSouth and the North are at political loggerheads,
where corruption has taken out both theDemocratic and Republican parties, where the
country is looking for a unifier andit manages to find it. Am I

(00:48):
talking about the twenty twenty four elections, No, folks, I'm talking about
eighteen eighty and I'm talking about somebodyyou have never heard of, President Garfield.
And that's what we're gonna talk aboutin today program, President Garfield from
Radical to Unifier and an event that'staking place on September twenty one at the
Garden District Bookshop with the author CharlesGoodyear. And is all wait, Christopher

(01:11):
does he swim and our bayous?No, I'm afraid he does. He's
not connected to our garfish, notto our garfish, but he Garfield garfish
sounds similar crossophim it must be acage, and God bless all out there.
You are now listening to the founders. So the voice of the founding
fathers, your founding fathers, comingto you deep within the bowels of those

(01:34):
mystic and cryptic alligator swamps of theBig Easy, that old Crescent City,
New Orleans, Louisiana, and highup on top of that old liberty cypress
tree draped in Spanish moss way outon the Eagles Branch is none other.
Then you're spend Gary Baba the RepublicChaplain Hi mcgenry with Christopher Tidmore. You're

(01:56):
Roving a reporter, resident radical,moderate and associate editor of the Louisian Weekly
newspaper at Louisiana Weekly dot net.And this week we're gonna take a little
break from politics, at least politicsof the twenty twenty fours and go back
to the eighteen eighties, through backto the eighteen fifties and of points in
between. And we're going to doit with a renowned, award winning author
who actually hails from New Orleans.Charles Goodyear, better known as CW.

(02:21):
Goodyear, is the author of PresidentGarfield from Radical to Unifier, and Charles,
as we say here in the Foundershow Welcome Home and this you're coming
on the twenty first of September tothe Garden District Bookshop to premiere your new
book, President Garfield. And what'sastonishing, as we teased in the opening,
Charles, is that a lot ofthe tensions that we're going on when

(02:44):
Garfield runs for president, when hegets the nomination eighteen eighty, Let's see,
it was a credit scandal, thebiggest one we ever had in our
history. He's coming out of.It's congressional investigations. It's corrupt elections,
it's fake voters, it's electoral votething, it's merely conflicts. Right after
it, it sounds so different thanit is today, it doesn't it.

(03:06):
Yeah, well, I was goingto say, well one, thank you
for having me on. You know, Chris, this is uh, it's
really a pleasure every time I geta chance to be back on New Orleans
media to talk about this. Yeah, you're hi. This is hi mcgenry,
And I want to know that Iknew your father, wonderful guy and
in a lot of time at MoneyHill, especially even back when it was

(03:28):
a hunting club many years ago.Of course, Yeah, small world,
It just goes to show everybody knowseverybody. But the big question is will
we learn from history this time?As as I say, those who don't
study history are doomed to repeat it? Are we go repeated? Are we
going to grow up and learn?What are we going to do? Well?
Yeah, It's like Mark Twain oncesaid, history doesn't repeat itself,

(03:50):
but it sure rhymes a lot.And I think, what James Garfield's story?
I get asked all the time,by the way, because President James
Garfield, who my book was about, he is not one of our presidents
who we remember very often. Andthen in fact, when I said,
when I said I'm gonna have somebodyon James Garfield, people just looked at
me like, wait, what whatI mean? He doesn't even really get

(04:13):
a line. And yet when Iread your book and I'm reading about the
Congressional investigations credit MIVI, I'm readingabout the founding of the Republican Party,
when he's signing off on Freemont,reading in all this, and I'm saying
myself, my god, he wouldhave fit in and probably been desperately needed
in our current political environment. Andyet he why doesn't he get the credit

(04:33):
of what happened. I mean somuch, he held together the Union at
a critical time. Why doesn't heget that credit? Yeah, No,
it's probably worth explaining to the audiencewhat his significance was. Before James Garfield
was even elected President of the UnitedStates, he was already being described,
and this is circa eighteen eighty,he was already being described as one of

(04:55):
the most impressive and influential Americans ofall time. He had been born in
a log cabin in rural Ohio,raised by a single mother, and then
he went on this just remarkable politicalarc that ended with him in the presidency,
and along the way, his definingtrait and his period, by the
way of real political prominence was reconstruction. So immediately following the Civil War,

(05:16):
his defining trade in this incredibly divisiveperiod of American politics, which was defined
by political hyperpartisanship, racial tension inAmerica, economic malaise. As you point
out, Garfield's defining trait was hewas increasingly this lonely, pragmatic, kind,
remarkably kind figure of an increasingly dividedAmerica. And the way I described

(05:42):
him in interviews like this, andI wish I'd thought to put this in
the book he was a pathologically reasonableperson. And you know what's so difficult
about somebody like that is that Washingtonand politics in general, especially in that
time, as in a rational place. And he ended up being elected president
almost by accident, but in greatpart because he was the last person that
this increasingly divided Republican Party could unifyitself under. And let me let me

(06:10):
say that I was in your newbook, President Garfield, from radical to
Unifier, Charles Goodyear, you talkabout that convention, and it made me
kind of want to get the oldboss system back, because you're everybody is
going through this convention. It's sodivided, the country is so divided,
the whole thing. And Garfield keepssaying, I really don't want to do

(06:31):
this. I really don't want todo this. And he's not acting,
He's basically saying I really don't wantto do this, and everybody keeps rushing
to him, saying you've got todo this, until finally he's drafted,
almost and and of course that couldnever ever happen in our current field.
And it makes one wonder have wereally gone so have we advanced so much
in our politics that somebody who mightbe worthiest. We can't even draft anymore

(06:57):
because the way our system is setup. So, yeah, he was
very reluctant, and by the way, he had every right to be,
as his experience in the office showsus, because he was obviously assassinated in
great part because of his failure tokeep the Republican Party of his time together.
But I could ask this a lottoo, because he was this moderate
peace making, this great deal makerof a very ambiguous time in American history,

(07:21):
one that not a lot of usstill have a memory of. Really,
people like him still exist today inour system. There are technocratic congressmen,
there are people who prioritize problem solvingin our politics over what I describe
as pyrotechnics. But unfortunately, theway you're right, our media system is

(07:42):
set up, unfortunately pragmatism and dealmaking and kind of open mindedness on many
hot button issues that doesn't really generateclicks, that doesn't really sell very well.
And so I think people like himdo exist. They're just it's just
very difficult on both sides the eyel, I should say, it's just very
hard for them to get visibility forthe American public, and by extension,

(08:05):
it makes it hard for them toget into positions of prominence. Certainly,
we don't have anybody who's reluctant torun for president anymore. Yeah, I
mean, I think if you're oneof the requirements is you've got to want
You've got to absolutely want it.We'll never have a president who said I'll
do this as a as a publicservice, as a public duty. And
I'm not saying, yeah, I'mnot saying that James Garfield was not a

(08:26):
politician. He was. It wasa very good one, but he was.
But he was not somebody who wouldhave probably run in the primaries and
gone through the gauntlet of a FoxNews or MSNBC, depending on what side
it is debate. It's just,oh yeah, no, not at all.
Two things. One, like alot of great politicians of all of

(08:48):
every single era, he pretended andhe claimed to be a bad one.
That was a very important part ofhis reputation. And then two, you're
quite right when you read about thegreat presidential nominee conventions of our past.
You know, there are these amazingpieces of like gladiatorial combat in kabuki theater
where all the different factions of theseparties show up in an arena in public

(09:09):
view, and then they fight itout amongst themselves to figure out who is
going to be their presidential nominee.Today, we don't we don't have that,
and by extension, I'd argue wehave fewer meaningful conversations within our parties
and that creates, I think,in many ways, a recipe for extremism
on many sides of our aisle.Yeah, so he was kind of like

(09:31):
Henry Clay Jefferson Davis. I thinkeven today jfk Uh, I think I
think he would h he was,but I think he would dive over the
table if you compared him to JeffersonDavis. I know he got He's a
union general who was you know?Then you may not know what jeff Jeffson

(09:52):
Davis had a reputation in Congress ofbeing a great compromiser and could always get
people to work together. And hewas the last person to leave the Willard
Hope tell As the final debates endedover whether the South was succeed or not
over the moral tax, which wouldhave bankrupted the South. The South was
paying well eight and nine percent ofall the tax. It's for the whole
country. We all in one fourthof population, and yet Jefferson Davis was

(10:13):
still trying to save the Union andheal the wounds and get people to get
along, and he also reluctantly wentto serve as a probably he did not
want to be the president of theConfederacy. All right, hios, I've
heard that. I would also Iwould also disagree with about twenty different points
of that, not because there's thepoints about time to do that right now.
But what I want to get intoabout James Garfield because he plays and

(10:37):
for those that are joining us,you're probably wondering why we're talking about James
Garfield for the better part an hourwith our special guest ja Charles Goodyear.
And it's not just because he wrotea book on President Garfield from Radical Unifier,
but because the period of time he'sliving in, strangely is, has
so many parallels to the times welive in. But what I intrigued me

(10:58):
that I didn't know is how whata poor background. We talked about being
born in a log cabin. Wetalked about the Lincoln myth. In some
ways it's more applicable to James Garfieldthan it was even to Abraham Lincoln.
Yes, no, it absolutely washe was the way I described Garfield,
not in the book, but eversince. He was born to as lower

(11:20):
rum of American society as a whitenorthern male could be born to at that
time. He was born in thewestern reserve of Ohio, which is oxymoronically
the northeastern part of the state.And these days we think of the Midwest
as being a very placid state place. Back in those times, the Midwest,
this was eighteen thirty one he wasborn in. Back in those times,

(11:43):
the Midwest was the wilderness. Itwas the frontier of the country.
It was a wild West of thattime. It was absolutely and James Garfield
was born to a homesteading family ofYankee descendants in this corner of Ohio.
He actually wasn't even the first Jamesgar his family. He was named in
the Yankee tradition after an elder siblingwho had died before he was born.

(12:07):
Uh. And he didn't even reallyget a chance to know his father.
James Garfield's dad, Abram, diedwhen he was only about two years old,
the child, not the father,of course. And well, they
were from Uh. They were originallyfrom that part of Ohio alive their enter
before Ohio they were from the mother'sside was originally from New Hampshire, and

(12:30):
then the father and she was froma French descendant family of the Blues,
and the father the Gabram Garfield.The Garfields were among the first English settlers
of Massachusetts. Actually, the firstshots at the Battle of Lexington were allegedly
fired by a Garfield. That's what, yeah, that's what a testimony of
that time says. And it's interestingbecause all the all the men of that

(12:52):
family all look the exact same theywere when you look at the historical record.
They were all around six foot tall, they're all very muscular, and
they all lost their hair at quitean early age. And so James Garfield
fell, yes, yes, exactly, and you could see that in the
in President Garfield's life too. Buthe ended up because of you know,

(13:13):
the death of his father. Heended up having to be raised by his
mom. And so when he eventuallygot into the White House. The titles
of the biographies written about him,they all had they all said the same
thing. When he was still president, it was from a log cabin to
the White House, the James Garfieldstory. That was what they all tended
to name. Like Abe Lincoln exactly. But what I thought was more impressive

(13:35):
is when Garfield moved into the WhiteHouse, he took his mom with him
into the mansion. So I thinkthat's even more impressive that by the time
he had managed this remarkable assent,he took his mom along. Because as
you guys probably appreciate, very fewpresidents of good relationships with their mothers.
So he was the exception to thatrule. And it's it's an incredible story

(13:56):
when he's there. We're going toget into that period of time for James
Garfield, because essentially he's taking theWhite House at a time when the country
is politically divided right down the middle. It is it is remarkable, and
we didn't fight a civil war,but it is remarkable how similar the political
times of eighteen eighty were. ButI want to just sort of go back

(14:18):
and ask you, Charles Goodyear,why you know James Garfield kind of resonated
with you, a sky and bornof New Orleans who's gone to the Ivy
League, become a very prominent academicand professor. Why you're you chose this,
of all topics, the first presidentreally to suffer assassination. All of

(14:39):
this We're going to talk about thatall when we come back from the break
here on The Founder Show with Himckenry and Christopher Tidmore. CW. Goodyear
Charles Goodyear is going to be presentinghis book at the Garden District Bookshop on
the twenty first of September. Ladiesand gentlemen. It is open to the
public. We will find up moreinformation at Garden District Bookshop dot com and
we'll background after these important messages eightteamed Come take a ride on a streetcar

(15:07):
named Desire to the New Orleans OperaBall Saturday, October seven at the Higgins
Hotel. Just like a trip onour historic street cars, this year's Gallo
will be a journey to celebrate allthings that make New Orleans unique, our
music, our culture, and ardoisdeviva, featuring local musicians on a Saint
John and BRW band. The patronparty at Rosie's on the Roof will begin

(15:28):
at six pm and the ball followsat seven pm. General mission tickets are
two hundred and fifty dollars per personand patron tickets are three hundred and fifty
dollars per person. For further informationand to purchase tickets. Please visit our
website at www dot New Orleans OperaBall twenty twenty three dot org. Rescue,

(15:48):
recovery, re engagement. These arenot just words. These are the
action steps we at the New OrleansMission take to make a positive impact on
the homeless problem facing the greater NewOrleans area. Did you know in twenty
twenty homelessness and our community increased byover forty percent. The New Orleans Mission

(16:11):
is a stepping stone out of thatlife of destruction and into a life of
hope and purpose. Partner with ustoday. Go to www dot New Orleans
Mission dot org, or make adifference by texting to seven seven nine four
eight and welcome back to the Founder'sShow. You can always hear this program

(16:41):
from eight to nine am on Sundayson ninety nine five w RNL, on
Monday, Wednesday and Friday Friday,Monday and Wednesday on eight to nine am
on WSLA ninety three point nine FMfifteen sixty am twenty four seven three sixty
five, on the iHeartMedia app,or at our website The Founders Show dot
com. As always, I'm Christopher'sand Chapelin Hot Mickey and Ring is always

(17:02):
folks, Christopher, and I wasworking so very hard to bring you the
truth, the truth, the wholetruth, and nothing but the truth.
So help us God, and wegot a man who's got a lot of
good truth for us. In hisgreat book. He's written about President Garfield
truly, I think one of thebest presidents we've had. And I gotta
say, Charles, I really agreewith that. And the funny thing is,

(17:22):
look, I've been an American historianmyself who's written on American history,
and I've got to say I knewthe story of Garfield Tertiarily. I knew
the time I knew his valry JamesBlaine. I knew his assassination, So
I knew more than i'd say theaverage person knew. I didn't even begin
to know his story, not onlyhow important it was, how many basically
how many presidents he set up,how a critical role he played in American

(17:45):
history, but more importantly, theone thing I did know, I didn't
understand, and that was his assassination, which was really a factional fight about
bitter politics that could have come outof something that we would watch on a
shooting on television, or really thefactional politics that goes into some of our

(18:07):
modern politics, and it's terrifyingly familiar. And can you start at the end
and work our way back, Yes, so we can go to the very
end where we have President Garfield,who dies essentially six months into his first
term in office. So I'm actuallyvery flattered that you both rank him as
one of our best presidents, becausehe really didn't have much opportunity to be
president at all. But to goback a little bit, and as we

(18:30):
mentioned at the time at the startof this show, Garfield was a reluctant
runner for the presidency. He wasalmost forced really to take the nomination by
his party because the Republican Party bythat time was so divided amongst its internal
factions that it looked in many wayslike it might risk even the fate of
the party. You had all ofthese different blocks from the stalwarts was one

(18:55):
another one we're called the half breeds, and each of these different factions had
their own candidates in mind. Garfieldended up being this dark horse candidate who
was picked as this unity figure withinthe Republican Party, and he immediately had
a difficult time trying to lead theparty in the way that he had led
his entire political life, which isto be this compromising, conciliatory, peacemaking

(19:18):
figure within the party. And heends up having to crack a lot of
deals among these factions throughout his campaign, and by the time that he becomes
president he starts to realize how difficultit's going to be to keep these things
together. So he gets into officeand immediately he runs into trouble trying to
manage the parsing out of federal poweramong his Republican blocks. The Stalwarts are

(19:42):
a big problem, a big thornin his side. He had promised them
during the campaign season that he wouldgive stalwarts control of a lot of departments
of the government. He had allegedlypromised them the US Treasury, sometimes the
Interior Department. He had even madehis vice president, Chester Arthur, who
was a Stalwart, you know,vice president. So he had given stalwarts

(20:04):
a lot of promises and a lotof gestures of peacemaking. But the Stalwarts
were still not happy by the timeof the Garfield administer and let's let's and
if I can stop you, becauseyou're hearing the term star warts, and
this is about power and money,because this was this is the time of
the Civil Service Acts. This isthe time when we're trying to get professionalization
and government. And essentially this wasthe old Republican machine, and people were

(20:30):
kind of mad that they didn't havejobs in control in various areas that this
was going. Essentially somebody saying weshould take a lot of our government work
outside of politics. That was aradical notion at the time. It was
yes, because back in this period, and this has been true, this
had been true since the founding ofthe Republic, the US really didn't have
a professional federal bureaucracy. Instead,most of its civil servants were primarily political

(20:55):
appointees. So everybody from your localtax official to your local post and aster
to even your sheriff, they wereRepublicans or Democrats first and then civil servants
second. And so the stalwarts.When Garfield took power in the White House,
the stalwart Republicans wanted as many ofthese jobs as possible, and Garfield
was hesitant to give them to him. And for that reason, you know,

(21:17):
I'd argue the administration proceeds predictably whereyou have this great falling out between
President Garfield and the Stalwarts and theSenate, and it results in this very
ugly, toxic partisan infighting, andthen the administration proceeds unpredictably. I'd argue
because after Garfield wins that battle,after he defeats the Stalwarts, a disaffected
stalwart who was mentally ill, somebodywho had tried to get one of these

(21:41):
jobs and failed, he decides thatif he shoots and kills President Garfield,
that the new president, the stalwartChester Arthur, would be so grateful that
he would give the assassin whatever jobin the federal bureaucracy the assassin wanted.
And it is exactly what the assassindoes. He track, he stalks Garfield

(22:03):
essentially over the course of a monthand eventually shoots him in downtown DC.
And sadly, that is far fromthe end of the story. And it's
it's kind of interesting what happens next. You asked me Hi and I why
we think he was a great president. Not only is he trying to create
a unity at a difficult time.Who is going to grow out of this

(22:26):
whole experience. It's not Chet Arthurwho becomes president. It's really the guy
who's going to end up trying toput together the civil service, trying to
face down the party trying to reformit. A young man by the name
of Theodore Roosevelt. And so thatthat's gonna puts So it's you can sometimes
draw your person's greatness by the peoplethat they're going to bring into greatness.
Yeah, you know, Theodore Roosevelt. The first person Theodore Roosevelt Junior voted

(22:49):
for for president was James Garfield.But what's also interesting about that story is
and in Theodore Roosevelt Junior, bythe way, he watched this assassination.
He wrote about it in his diarywhile he was traveling. But it was
interesting further Chester arms. He wasvery close to two assassinations. It's always
president and then this one. Yeah, he was what's even more, by

(23:11):
the way, and almost assassinated himself. He wasn't. But what's even more
bizarre is that when Garfield was shot, he was shot in the train station
in downtown DC that's no longer standing, in the Baltimore and Potomac station.
But when he was shot, hissecretary of war was forty feet away and
saw the assassination, saw the shooting. And the secretary of war was none

(23:33):
other than Robert Todd Lincoln, whowas Abraham Lincoln's last surviving son. Yeah,
And as Secretary of War Robert Todd, Lincoln was in charge of securing
the scene of garfield shooting. Andthen he gave this quote to a journalist
outside, He said, how manyhours of suffering I have passed in this
town? So Garfield's life is thiswonderful series of threads that you know,

(23:55):
it's just a wonderful neglected piece ofhistory where all these narratives in our nation's
past intersect in a lot of interestingways. But I was getting on a
segue because Theodore Roosevelt's father, TheodoreRoosevelt Senior, had been had tried to
take Chester Arthur's job as Custom's Collectorof the Port of New York during the

(24:15):
Hayes administration, and that had beenone of the big political battles of that
time. And Theodore Roosevelt Senior hadfailed in that attempt, and it was
in great part because of the corruptnature of the politics at that time.
So you're quite right, these thingsall intersect in strange ways. And I
think the assassination issue for those thatare just joining us, which HARKing to
Charles Goodyear, he's the author ofthe book President Garfield from radical to unifier

(24:38):
when we go through some of Garfield'slife, but we're talking about kind of
parallels. We think our politics isso horrendous and divided. I would point
out that President Garfield's assassination is kindof the book end of reconstruction. If
the beginning of it is the assassinationof Abraham Lincoln, the end of it
is the assassination of James Garfield,and in between is the end of the

(25:03):
Civil War and the division of thecountry and the reconstruction and civil rights in
the first Department of Education, everythingin between. It is this era of
anything but good feelings. So JamesGarfield was born in the earth of good
feelings. He dies at the endof the era of bad feelings and so
and I think that's really worth thepeople that come out of his life,
because to me reading about him,he's a poor kid. He works on

(25:29):
the canals, he does everything,becomes a lawyer, one of the most
brilliant attorneys besides politicians in American history, arguing before the Supreme Court. But
in all of this he starts offas a complete political idealist. We forget
that the Republican Party was formed assort of a radical progressive party in the
very beginning. It wasn't just slavery. It was a lot of very other

(25:51):
issues, and leading early those chargeswas James Garfield. Yes he was.
He was in it, and you'requite right, the Republican Party was founded,
at least in a vague sense,around the issue of anti slavery politics.
Garfield was a radical Republican. That'swhere the radical and my subtitle comes
from. And he was one ofthe very few Union generals during the Civil

(26:15):
War who really believed in the necessityof a thorough reconstruction of the South.
He was a firebrand. He believedin the need not just for the immediate
abolition of slavery, but also,during the war, the immediate equality of
citizenship rights and political rights between theraces in America. He wanted leading Confederates

(26:36):
disenfranchised, exiled, or executed.He was even on board with Daddy Stevens
plan to redistribute southern plantation land andgive it to what he called loyal rights
and former slaves. He was Hewas an idealist. Pragmatism did not come
naturally. Did he want any ofthat for the Northland in the north No,

(26:57):
No, he didn't. He wasone of these crusading, almost evangelical
progressives of that time. Now andthen and then I'm gonna bring it in
Charles Goodyear. Yeah, he beatselected. He is one of the youngest
Union generals. He's also one ofthe youngest congressman at thirty one. He

(27:17):
gets in and then interestingly, theradical, the if what we would think
of today almost as leftist, becomesthe great moderate, the great unifier,
the guy who's bringing both sides togetherin the middle of the whole thing.
And it's kind of a it's atransformation in a matter of speaking, but
a matter of speaking, it waskind of his political maturity. Yeah,

(27:37):
I know, he really did mature. And also personality was he was always
this hail fellow, well met.He was always somebody who, despite the
extremism of his early politics, reallybelieved in personal friendships transcending goals. But
I'll say this, as he gotinto Congress and as the what i'd say,
the disappointments and the difficulties of reconstructionere a politics started to set in,

(28:00):
experience proved a very good teacher.Nothing tamps down extreme political ideas like
experience. In the political realm,and he started by the time of the
Johnson impeachment. For example, hehad this great quote that he gave that
kind of reflected what he thought was, you know, the necessary political evolution
of that time. He's saying,halfway through the Johnson impeachment, I'm trying

(28:23):
to do two things. I'm tryingto be a radical and not a fool,
which, if fine to look atthe demonstrations around me, is a
very difficult thing to do. Andhe starts to really believe, at least
practice that there is a personal andpolitical necessity. He believes in four political
compromise and pragmatic politics. He startsto become this key figure that just keeps

(28:48):
the great gears of our government turningfor everybody's benefit. And he has this
other good line, and he usesthis to describe, by the way,
his politics to other people. Becausehe gets criticized for this approach throughout the
decade that follows the end of thesong. I mean, and we're going
to touch on this later. Oneof the persons who read your book found
it very familiar. Both the rightand the left grows to hate him on

(29:11):
in each party because yeah, theydo they well, they all say the
same thing about him at the time, which is very interesting. Democrats say
this. Frederick Douglas says this,Ulysses Grant said this. They all,
they all say of James Garfield thathe has no moral backbone because his views
on issues seems so this seems soloose and seems so vague, and he

(29:33):
seems so flippant with how he changeshis mind in the face of arguments.
But he would turn this around onthese critics, regardless of their political ideology.
He would say, and I'm quoting, it must be so easy to
be a man of political extremes.It is difficult to see so many sides
for so many sides to every singlesubject. So he really believes that political

(29:56):
open mindedness is the arduous path andin many ways the necess sery one for
our politics to continue to function.And he happily, maybe unhappily, inhabited
that role for a lot of thepost war period. And one of the
things I found interesting before I readyour book, one of the people that
James Garfield had sort of had animpact on was Roscoe Conkling. And you

(30:18):
don't go in too much in thebook, but the reason why I found
it interesting. Was one of thepeople Conkling's going to have a major impact
with that sabrel philosophy is Winston Churchill, and so interesting, and it's as
one of his political mentors. Andthere's a direct line in some of the
advice that Garfield gives to Conkling thatConkling gives to a young twenty four year
old Winston Churchill who's sort of caughtin the middle between two parties which most

(30:41):
watch. I was not aware ofthat connection between Conkling and Churchill. That's
very interesting. It was of theyes, oh my gosh, wow,
Well, yes, you could saythat Garfield had a great influence on Conkling.
You could also say that the Montagueshad a great influence on the Capulates.
They were they I nearly put thisline the book, and my editors
stopped. But when Conkling and Garfieldfirst cross paths in and early Congress,

(31:06):
I nearly say that their intersection wouldlead to each of their deaths, for
Conkling political and for Garfield literal.Because Conkling rose to become the head of
the Stalwarts, he was Garfield's primarilyprimary antagonist when Garfield was president, So
it became this uh, you know, they were set on a collision course
and they never really recovered from itin either case. So yeah, what

(31:30):
was great about that time is thepolitical rivalries and relationships. These men could
destroy one another in a sentence.They had the most amazing, eloquent,
incredible insults for one another, andit just, you know, for when
you read the things that they sayabout one another, it's just it's amazing
brevity and insults packed into a singlesentence, and it's just so fun to

(31:53):
read. We're talking to Charles Goodyear, folks. He's the author of President
Garfield, Radical to Unified. Anevent will be at the Garden District Bookshop
on September twenty first at six o'clockpm. It is free and open to
the public to come hear more aboutPresident James Garfield in his career. But
in high mckenry and Chritopher Tipmore weretalking about Garfield but kind of also some

(32:16):
of the parallels. Charles tell usa little bit more about his assassin.
The man's background which he had recentlyarrived American, an emigrant or his parents
were no. No, the assassinwas somebody who actually tried to avoid mentioning
his name except for one instance throughoutthe book. He was somebody who had

(32:37):
come from a religious community I believein upstate New York called the Amita community.
And this was somebody who had prettymuch spent his entire life trying and
failing in every single aspect of life. He had tried to be a preacher,
a publisher, and educator, apolitician, and really the underlying current
of this person's life is mental illness. He had actually been his name was

(32:59):
Charles gets Gui Ta t e aU. And he had been actually kicked
out of that Onita community because inthe Unita community was this actually this free
loving, polygamous Christian sect in NewYork. He had been kicked out of
them because he was too weird,which tells you how strange he was.

(33:20):
I think interesting that part of Yorkwas known as a burned over area because
there had been so many crazy,wild evangelists who were literally burning everybody out,
and most of the cults in Americatoday trace their origins to that location.
And then it's really I had noidea that it's incredible, but yeah,
when when Gito eventually set his sights, he had again tried to get

(33:42):
a job in Garfield's administration, inone of those low civil service jobs,
he had actually managed to meet Garfield. He had managed to meet Garfield's wife,
Lucretia. He had managed to meetChester Arthur. He the distance in
those times between regular Americans and theirpolitical leaders was practically non asistant, and
Garfield's assassination would do a lot tochange that. But this assassin, he

(34:04):
was able to stalk the president andget obviously very close, and he had
actually interesting left. This shows youwhat he was aiming for. He had
decided. Once he decided to killGarfield, he picked out his weapon,
an Ivory handled Bulldog revolver in aforty four caliber size. And he had
picked that gun because he decided thatit would look good in a museum display.

(34:29):
So he literally knew by that pointwhat he was shooting for. In
if I might play on words alittle bit, by the way, forty
four caliber, folks, is avery deadly, big, powerful gun bullet
that when it hits, it knocksyou over. Yep, and James Garfield.
Let's also back up a little bit, because people were sort of jumping
around a little bit. Charles Goodyear, author of President Garfield, from Radical

(34:52):
to unifier. But this was ata time when he becomes president. It's
not like he just came out ofthe firmament. He had been trying to
both have good government and calm attitudesin Congress for some time. Let's four
years before the quote end of reconstruction, four to eight years the idea,

(35:15):
the Rutherford B. Hayes election whereit was disputed the louis and it came
down to Louisiana and the electoral votesin Louisiana and two different slates of electors.
This was a very tough This wasthe end of the occupation. And
while all this right before all ofthis goes on, Garfield's in Congress and
we have the worst economic scandal almostin American history, called the credit mobil

(35:39):
a scandal, And can you givea little bit of the context of everything
that's going on post Civil War?Credit? Am I saying it right?
Credit Mobilier? Yeah? Credit Mobilier. It is a confusing name, is
but the essence of it was,if I might boil things down to their
most basic level. Congressmen were caughtholding shares of a fraudulent railroad construction contractor

(36:06):
that was receiving indirectly subsidies from thefederal government. So it was one of
the big You're right, it wasone of the big corruption scandals and one
of the great symbolic failures of governmentin that era when many of the leading
congressmen of that time were caught withshares in this company Credit Mobilier and Garfield
was one of them, and hemanaged to survive that scandal. But you're

(36:28):
quite right that even before he waselected president, he had had this story
political career that included political crises,disputed presidential elections, scandals. This all
you know, sadly does sound ratherfamiliar. And when when that disputed election
did happen the election of eighteen seventysix. Did the scandal begin under the

(36:49):
grand administration? It did. Itwas one of the well Grant was not
short of scandals, and Credit Mobiliertarred the Granted administration just as much as
it did the era of the time. So yeah, it was a time
reconstruction. In general, it wasa period of profound disappointment, I'd argue

(37:12):
throughout the nation, and that Criticmobilierwas just a reflection of that. And
so basically morale about politics falls toit's one of its lowest levels, and
you get Garfield, who is aunifier, but he's still something of an
idealist. And one of the reasonswhy I find it a little well funny
an ironic sense of the word,was that the debate in the Republican field

(37:36):
amongst basically that candidates who names arenot Trump is getting rid of the Department
of Education because it's it's not historicto America. And yet James Garfield is
the first person who creates the firstDepartment of Education. He does, yes,
and he does, and he wasa Republican who created the first Department
of Education, which is quite interestingnow. The entity he created was very

(37:58):
different from what we have today,but quite right that it is ironic.
He created the first Department of Educationin part, and he was a congressman
of this time because he intended itas a reconstruction measure. He asked Congress,
he asked the House during this creationprocess, he asked, are we
to expand the bounds of citizenship andmake no provision to increase the intelligence of

(38:22):
the citizen. He really believed educationhad been such a transformative forcing his own
life. He thought it was areal necessity going forward if we are to
truly have a just and equal republic. So, yes, that is another
one of those cases where these thingsdo rhyme with events today. So James
Garfield becomes president, he is acompromised candidate in their factions with his own

(38:45):
party. And the Democrats, ofcourse, are researching they've been out of
power since before the Civil War.We're not that far away from a certain
president who gets elected, loses theWhite House, and then runs again four
years later. Another things, Soanother parallel with today. So one of
the things that's going on is he'sat a time where the two parties have

(39:07):
essentially gone from majority Democrats to majorityRepublican to almost a point of complete parody,
you know, of equality electorally,and it's and Garfield is dealing with
this level of division. And sohow does he if he had lived,
if he had not been assassinated.You make some speculations, is to some

(39:30):
of the things that might have happened. Yes, let's see one reflection by
the way of the parity and government. During Garfild's administration, it was one
of the very few times in ourhistory where the vice president actually pretty much
had to repeatedly sit in the Senatebecause the Senate was it was equally divided
between Republicans and Democrats, so differentfrom today, of course, and exactly

(39:52):
there there you go. Exactly uhyes, So I'm quite I'm discordant in
the views of what Garfield could havedone if he had been allowed a full
administration. When a lot of peopleread his inaugural address and they look at
the scope of his life historically andthey see the fundamental, the pleasant personality

(40:15):
of the man, and everything hehad accomplished in life, and the virtue
of how that life ended. Allof those combined to make people very optimistic
with what he could have been.And I'd argue, and the way I
argue in the book, albeit indirectlybecause I don't like putting my own voice
into the book, overtly, Imake the case that by that point in
his life he had somebody who hadgone from being you know, as you

(40:36):
discussed real in this interview, oneof the most idealistic and fire brandy of
American political leaders, he had becomesomebody who was this great pragmatist who believed
that politics in America was the artof the possible. He had gone through
this full evolution, and he basicallywas willing to take minor victories on a

(40:57):
lot of issues that he believed wouldbe resolvedolved for the better in the long
run, and that ranges from civilrights to civil service reform to public education.
He endorsed the idea of universal publiceducation in his inaugural address. And
I think he would have been somebodywho would have made decent progress on all
those issues, but he wouldn't havebeen this transformative figure that a lot of

(41:19):
people like to ascribe to him.I'd argue in many ways by the way
that the public reaction to his deathof that time, it was not unlike
the way America reacted to the Kennedyassassination. It was this young, accomplished,
charismatic president who was taken from thenation too early, and the result
was a lot of hagiography about whohe was that didn't quite reflect reality.

(41:40):
But I will say that there's alot of obviously debate about that and what
he could have been. And oneof the things that we can go in
all the actually is I actually respectGarfield because he stopped James Blaine from becoming
the nominee and we might have goneto war with the Great with Great Britain
if James Blaine had actually become Presidentof the United States. So he did

(42:02):
us the great favor in that.But one of the things that I've been
intrigued about Charles Goodyear and for thosethat are joining the CW. Goodyear who's
been joining us is the author ofPresident Garfield from Radical Unifier. The book
is available at the Garden District Bookshopat twenty seven twenty seven, Britannia,
and he's doing an event on atsix pm on the twenty first of September.
It's freeing open to the public aboutto hear more about President Garfield,

(42:23):
but not to have you comment oncurrent politics. I'm not saying this,
but what I was intrigued is somebodywho was intrigued by James Garfield is Joe
Mansion, who is sort of andit's come up a couple of times about
he's a tremendous student of history who'sbeen watching this situation between the parties,
and he's actually made a reference toJames Garfield saying I don't know if he's

(42:45):
read your book yet or not,but the reference to James Garfield saying that
you know, we are so divided. Maybe somebody needs to step between these
extremes and communicate what'space. And Ithought that was a very interesting viewpoint for
something that connects to a guy whohad not the same kind of life but
a life not so radically different inWest Virginia to what Ohio would have been

(43:07):
at the time, and so onand so forth, and so I thought
that it just shows that some thingsdo go full circle. That is very
interesting. I had absolutely no ideathat Mansion had made those references. I've
heard of a few other senatorial fansof James Garfield. And you know who
actually also quoted him was Joe Bidenat the recent Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington

(43:30):
Cemetery. The first National Dedication Day, which was in essence, the first
Memorial Day we had, was heldat Arlington Cemetery, and the keynote speaker
was Congressman James Garfield. So heis, he is there, and there
are a I'll say, I'll saythis from my experience on the book trail,
that he has a lot of diehardfans out there who come out of

(43:52):
the woods whenever somebody talks about him, sometimes literally A couple of comments there
First of all, I'm glad Garfielddidn't get to kill all the Confederate leadership
because Christopher and I would have lostmost of our ancestors. We've not ever
seeding to you today. As anadmirer of Winston Churchill, I saw a
lot of parallels as somebody who startsoff as a firebrand and radical and then

(44:15):
has to see essentially what you haveto you actually have to govern in great
crisis. So we don't know howGarfield might have been tested in crisis,
but I will tee the testing ofwhat is a great book you've managed to
accountlish. Charles Goodyear, and folks, I hope you will encourage you to
come to the Garden District Bookshop eitheron September twenty first for this event or
whenever the book is sold. Wehave signed copies available. Read this book.

(44:37):
Take a look at it, CharlesGoodyear, It's been such a pleasure.
High you had a final comment.Yeah, let me just ask you
this, Charles, which could yousay that under President good Garfield, during
his administration, we actually had agood year way to do that? Yeah?

(44:59):
No, enough, that's that's thebest thing. That's quite great.
I'd say this is a. Thisis also a controversial take. His death
ended up producing a lot of good. Quite ironically, it went the way

(45:20):
the American political establishment and the publicreacted to his tragic assassination. Uh.
It did a lot to cool thepolitical tempers of that time, and it
actually served as the inspiration for civilservice reform uh goo uh. And so
the reason, by the way,that we have a professional bureaucracy today where
you know your post office worker doesnot owe their job to your local congressmen,

(45:43):
and that their actual rules and regulationsabout where our civil servants can take
their money from, that was becauseof legislation passed originally after Garfield's death and
in honor of him. In manyways, was this camp So it's great,
yes, so so so there wassomething positive that came out of that.
But my big takeaway from his lifein many ways is that a lot

(46:09):
of the things that we call unprecedentedtoday in our politics and our society and
the rhetoric we see, in manyways both reassuring and not, it's not
all that unprecedented. That's a that'sa wonderful might end that Charles good.
That leaves us a lot, Thatleaves us a lot to think about.
Charles Goodyear CW. Goodyear. Thebook is President Garfield Radical Unifier Events going

(46:30):
on September twenty first the Garden DistrictBookshop. But of course the book is
available Sign copies at the Garden DistrictBookshop. Twenty seven, twenty seven,
Britannia. Charles, thank you forjoining us. We'll be back with the
Patriotic Moment after these important messages.Stay tuned more of the Founder Show right
after this with I McHenry and ChristopherTitmore. A dozen short stemmed red roses
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(47:36):
lamnola dot com. That's lamb nola dot com and thank you so very
very much. Well, folks,were back in this chapanheimcgnry and it's not
a time for us to go intoour chaplain by by patriotic moment, we
just take a brief moment to remindyou of the biblical foundations of our country.
And because President Garfield had had alot to do with improving education in

(48:00):
America and that was one of hisgreat goals. Again, I'd like to
quote some more information from our variousgreat schools in this country. And this
again, it's one of the oldestones. We did this a few weeks
ago with Harvard, but we're withYale. Man, this is what the
foundational Rules and REGs of Yale LawSchools said. All scholars shall live religious,

(48:21):
godly and blameless lives according to therules of God's word, diligently reading
the Holy Scriptures, the Fountain ofLight and truth, and constantly attend upon
all the duties of religion, bothin public and secret. And then went
these rules and REGs went on tosay, if any scholar shall deny the
Holy Scriptures or any part of themto be the Word of God, or

(48:44):
to be guilty of heresy, orany era directly tending to subvert the fundamentals
of Christianity in continuing obstinate therein afterthe first and second admonition, he shall
be expelled. Folks, I thinkthe men who gave us education certainly wanted
to keep God in education, butyou know they wanted it in government also,

(49:05):
because all these students were going onto live a great government careers,
political careers, whatever. Folks,you know what these men are founding fathers
were great men, not just greatstatesmen, but the great men of God.
But you know the most important thingis that they were great men of
God. And they said that repeatedly. In their final years and final hours,
they cried, they thank God thatthey were going to heaven. What

(49:29):
about you? Will you be ableto do that? Are you going to
heaven when you die? You couldbe the greatest patron that ever lived.
But if you died without Christ,what good would it mean? So I'm
just going to take now a brieftime to show you in our chaplain by
by a gospel moment where I justshow you how you can join them,
how you can know that, youknow that, you know you are God's
child, you are going to heavenand you are saved from hell. You

(49:51):
know, the Bible says, forGod's so love the world. That's you,
that's everybody. That he gave hisonly begotten son, that's the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's all the wayGod, all the way man, perfect
God and perfect man. He gavehis only begotten son, the Lord Jesus
Christ said, whosoever that's you again, believeth in him? Well, what
does that mean? Believe in himjust I believe God's energy. No,

(50:15):
it means that you need to understandthe purpose of Christ. It's called the
Gospel, and the Gospel in theBible says, for our declared toy the
Gospel that Christ died for all ofour sins. That's all of them,
folks, that he was buried andhe died for all of our sins.
According to the scripture that he wasburied and that he rose again from the
dead, that whosoever believeth and thisgreat Gospel message will be safe from hell

(50:37):
and guaranteed heaven. For I paraphrasethe end of that, Folks, that's
what it takes. You have tobelieve one hundred percent that the only hope
you have is Jesus by his dyingon the cross, his blood washing away
your sins, and then him risingfrom the dead. When he died for

(50:58):
your sins, he took care ofyour terrible love problem of sin that cuts
you off from God. And whenhe rose from the day, he took
care of your other love problem ofdeath, that one for you, his
precious free gift of resurrection, everlastinglife, That life is you waiting for
you right now. All you haveto do is believe with the faith of

(51:19):
a little child that you can't saveyourself. That's repentance, and then you're
free to put faith alone in Christalone, to believe that Jesus really did
die for all your sins, wasburied and rose from the day. When
I say all your sins, Imean from the day you're born to the
day you die. You're tiniest toyour greatest sins Now, folks, is
one more thing left here, andthat's about the fact that Jesus is coming
back, really, really, reallysoon. They're over two hundred prophecies telling

(51:42):
insists they've all for the most part, taken place. One of them from
Daniel is that the Bible says inDaniel that travel would increase and people would
go to and fro around the world. Well back then, in fact,
up until one hundred, two hundredyears ago, the farthest distance almost everybody
in the world ever go it wentwas about maybe twenty miles on rare occasions.

(52:07):
Folks, think of it. Whatwe're doing now, We're go twenty
miles just to go to work.A lot of us, we're traveling all
around the world. My partner here, Christopher, has traveled all around the
world many many times. Believe me, travel has increased, and that is
a great fulfillment of that prophecy.They would have never known that two thousand
years ago, but now we knowit's true. That's one signed, folks.

(52:30):
Jesus is coming back soon. Andwhen he comes back, it's gonna
be bad, because we're going tothe Battle of Armageddon and i'm'na tell you
what, folks, you don't wantto have to face that. It's going
to be the most terrible time ofthe bittle says the world's ever seen.
Please don't go there, don't bethere. If you take, if you
get the right safe house, theright bunk or the right cave to find

(52:51):
safety, you'll be okay. ButI'm gonna give you the name of that
cave, that bunk house, thatsafe outs, that bunker. It's the
Lord Jesus Christ. Go to himright now, make him your safe house.
Let him cover you with his protection, and I guarantee you you'll make
it. You'll be okay when theincomes. Trust him right now as your

(53:12):
savior, that he died for allyour sins, whispered in Roseman dead.
Well, thank you so very much. It's time for us to go.
Now as we close with the mindSaint Martin singing a creole goodbye and God
bless you all out there. Doesthis have to be the end of the
night? Do I love you?In the payal land, I can see

(53:37):
across the million stars. Look wecan pusy it's the son. I suppose
you can call it a creol