May 20, 2019 • 36 mins
In 1882 and 1883, decades before women had the right to vote, Julia Sand wrote a series of letters to President Chester A. Arthur that may have influenced his presidency.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, the production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Trying. So.
In the eighteen eighties, decades before women had the right
to vote, Julius Sand wrote a series of letters to
(00:24):
President Chester A. Arthur, the first before he was even president,
and those letters might really have influenced his presidency. We'll
talk about that a little later. This all happened during
a period that's known as the Gilded Age. That term
was popularized by Mark Twain to describe a society that
was very glittery on the surface but also rotten underneath.
(00:45):
It was a time of reform and progress. Some of
the reformers that we've talked about on the show before
we're during this period. But there was also a lot
of corruption and inequality in a very deeply partisan political process,
and this story of Julia Sand and Chester A. Arthur
connects to all of that. Before we get to Julia
Sands letters, we need to talk about Chester A. Arthur's
(01:07):
career before he became president and how he wound up
in that office. Because her letters grow out of all
of that. He was born on October five, eighty nine.
His father, William, was a minister, a teacher, and an abolitionist,
and the family moved around a lot, living in towns
in Vermont, New York, and Quebec. Arthur, who was friends
called Chet, worked as a teacher and a school principal
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before moving to New York City to pursue a career
in law. One of his first cases was known as
the Lemon slave case. Jonathan and Juliet Lemon of Virginia
had brought eight enslaved people with them to New York.
They were planning to immigrate to Texas, and they were
going to get on a steamer in New York to
go to Texas. But New York at that point had
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abolished slavery, and a judge ordered for the enslaved people
that they brought with them to be freed. Arthur and
William w Everts successfully represented the State of New York
when the ruling was appealed, so that ruling stood that
these people should be freed. In eighteen fifty five, Arthur
also successfully represented past podcast subject Elizabeth Dennings Graham and
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her discrimination suit against the Third Avenue Railway Company. Arthur
didn't come from money, and he was always looking for
a way to move up the economic ladder. To that end,
In the summer of eighteen fifty seven, he went to Kansas,
which was embroiled in a violent dispute over slavery. In
spite of his prior legal work and his family's deep
ties to abolition, a big motivation was that he hoped
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to make money. That he was really thinking he might
get into some land speculation. It wasn't so much about
the principles of slavery there. He didn't stay in Kansas
very long, though. He was engaged to a woman named
Ellen Herndon, who went by Nell, who he would later marry.
Nell's father was killed on September twelfth, eighteen fifty seven,
when the s S seven Troll America sank off the
(03:01):
coast of Cape Hatteras after a storm. After learning that
her father had died, Nell wrote to Chester. She asked
him to come home, and he did. The Central America
had been carrying gold that was meant to replenish the
supply in New York Banks, so when the ship sank,
the loss of all that needed gold, combined with existing
economic issues set off a financial panic. If this sounds familiar,
(03:24):
it is the same shipwreck and panic that came up
in our Levi Strauss episode not too long ago. And
even though Arthur's legal work had earned him some respect,
he just didn't have the experience or connections to earn
a good living as a lawyer during such tumultuous economic times.
Looking for another direction for his career, Arthur became more
and more involved with New York's Republican political machine, if
(03:48):
you're not familiar with that term of a political machine
is a political party organization that has a boss or
a very small clique of people at the top, and
then a hierarchy of deeply loyal officials and supporters that
extending all through every level of the government and then
out into the community. The name comes from the organization's
ability to achieve its goals with an almost mechanical efficiency,
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whether that goal is enacting some kind of actual change
or just staying in power. Especially in the nineteenth century,
these organizations became synonymous with bribery, fraud, and corruption. They
wanted to stay in power, not necessarily because they thought
they'd do a better job than someone else, but because
they ran the government in a way that personally benefited
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the boss and his cronies. At the same time, political
machines could inspire genuinely deep loyalty among voters. For example,
the boss might hand out food and clothing in an
impoverished neighborhood, making it clear who was to thank for
that help. But when that wasn't enough incentive to get
voters support, the machine might also turn to intimidation, threats,
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and fraud. Arthur got his start in all this working
with publisher and Republican boss Thomas wed who was a
huge proponent of what was known as the spoils system,
and that system was also connected to the way political
machines were working. Under this system, which is also known
as the patronage system, elected officials and political bosses routinely
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handed out jobs to their friends and supporters basically as rewards.
This bread a lot of inefficiency and corruption. People were
being appointed to positions that they really had no qualifications
for just because they were connected to somebody in power,
or people were convinced to support someone in power by
being promised a job in exchange for that support. Arthur's
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most obvious benefit from the spoil system was still to come.
Leading up to the Civil War, he joined the New
York State Militia, again more with the hope of advancement
than over the issue of slavery. He rose through the
ranks and eventually became Quartermaster General for the State of
New York. He also became connected to Edward D. Morgan,
another Republican who became Governor of New York. Arthur was
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increasingly involved in Republican politics during and after the war.
By eighteen seventy, Thomas Weed was getting older and his
grip as the Boss was slipping. Moving into his place
was Roscoe Conkling, who eventually became a Senator. Arthur also
had connections to William Ate Tweed, known as Boss Tweed,
who ran the opposing and also notorious Democratic political machine
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known as Tammany Hall. Tweed created a job for Arthur,
working as counsel to the City Tax Commission. He had
an annual salary of ten thousand dollars doing Nobody is
exactly sure what oh those jobs uh. Then on December one,
seventy one, Arthur became the customs collector for the Port
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of New York. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to
the position based on the recommendations of Senator Conkling and
the previous customs collector, Tom Murphy. Murphy was leaving in
disgrace after numerous allegations of fraud, criminal activity, and firing
customs inspects to replace them with men loyal to Roscoe Conkling.
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In spite of this tarnished reputation, he was allowed to
name his replacement. Customs collector was an incredibly powerful and
very lucrative role in terms of his own pay. Arthur
was earning as much as eighty thousand dollars a year,
which is roughly equivalent to more than half a million
dollars today, and this included a portion of the fines
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that were collected and the goods that were received at
the port. The federal government made a lot of money
at the port too. There was no federal income tax,
so most of the federal government's revenue was coming from customs,
and most of those customs were coming through New York collectors.
So the government in general and the customs collectors specifically
had a financial incentive to assess fines and fees at
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the port, or to seize goods for reasons that were
either overblown or flat out made up. Arthur had always
had an affinity for nice things. He liked fashionable clothes
and fine food and good cigars. Later on, after becoming president,
he would have Louis comfort Tiffany completely redecorate the White
House and hosts state dinners that required seven different wine
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glasses for every guest. So this post as customs inspector
really let him indulge his love of finer things. As
he was taking a cut of all these fines and
the goods that were moving through the port, some of
those fines and seized goods being just for completely fabricated reasons.
People called him the gentleman Boss. The role also put
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Arthur in a good position to do favors for his cronies,
like waving their shipments through the port without their having
to pay. Collected bribes and seized goods were passed around
the Republican political machine. Arthur also requested that his employees
donate to his faction of the Republican Party, known as
the Stalwarts, and this was supposedly voluntary but not really.
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Civil service rules implemented in eighteen seventy two banned these
types of political contribute shins, but Arthur continued to request
them anyway. That cut of the revenue that Arthur personally
got also disappeared. In eighteen seventy four, after Congress passed
the Anti Moiety Act. That act followed an investigation into
a fine that was assessed. That fine was for more
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than two hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, and it had
been levied against the firm of Phelps Dodge. Arthur and
several of his cronies had all gotten a share of
this fine. Arthur's cut of it was more than twenty
one thousand dollars, but it turned out that the fine
was almost entirely fraudulent. Corruption was threaded all through American
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politics at this point, but Arthur developed a reputation for
being particularly corrupt. Plus two Republican factions, the Moderates and
the Stalwarts, were increasingly at odds with each other. After
moderate Republican Rutherford Behave succeeded Grant as president in an
incredibly contentious election, he nominated Theodore Roosevelt Senior to take
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Arthur's place as customs collector, but the Stalwart faction of
the Senate repeatedly voted against confirming him, and Roosevelt died
of stomach cancer. With the matter still unsettled, Arthur was
finally suspended from the job on July eleven, seventy eight.
During his campaign, Rutherford Behayes had pledged to spend only
one term in office, so at the end of that term,
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the Republican Party needed to find a new candidate to
run in the eighteen eight presidential election. The stalwarts preferred
former President Grant, and the moderates worried that re electing
Grant would cause more division, especially since that would mean
he was returning to office for a third term. We
haven't gotten into it, but his earlier terms had a
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lot of the types of corruption that we've been talking about.
The anti Grant wing of the party wound up splitting
their votes between two candidates before eventually rallying around James A. Garfield.
After thirty six rounds of voting, Garfield finally became the
party's nominee. Arthur was selected as his running mate, mostly
to appease the Stalwarts and with the hope of getting
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votes from the state of New York in the election.
Arthur accepted the nomination even though he was still grieving
from the recent death of his wife thinking of the
whole thing as an honor and a possible chance at redemption.
This wasn't a particularly popular move, though. Almost immediately, rumors
started to spread that Arthur had not been born in
the United States, that he was from Canada or from
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his father's birthplace of Ireland, and thus was not eligible
to be vice president. This was such a convoluted and
weird and fascinating story. We're going to have a whole
podcast on it later. Hooray. In the end, Garfield won
the election, but on July two one, not quite four
months after his inauguration, he was shot by Charles J. Gutta.
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Police immediately apprehended Ghetto, who proclaimed quote, I did it
and I will go to jail for it. I am
a stalwart, and Arthur is now president. Ghetto's behavior and
statements were odd and erratic beyond just the fact that
he had shot the president, and he's often described as
a disappointed office speaker because he had been repeatedly turned
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away while trying to get an appointment as an ambassador.
He was so persistent that the Secretary of State eventually
ordered him to leave and never come back. But Chester A.
Arthur was notorious in this whole system of spoils and cronyism. So,
in his convoluted logic and disordered thinking, Ghetto seems to
have thought if Arthur were president, he would get a job.
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And that's where Julia sand finally comes into this picture.
We will get to her after a quick sponsor break.
President James Garfield lived for nearly eighty days after being
shot on July second one, and during that time Chester A.
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Arthur was at best kind of freaked out. He had
not really even considered that he had become president when
he accepted the nomination. Just being the vice president was
almost beyond the scope of his imagination. Arthur was on
a boat that was taking him from Albany back to
New York when the shooting happened. As the boat was
passing by a peer, someone shouted across the water that
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Garfield had been assassinated. One of Arthur's colleagues on the
deck heard this and came to the saloon to given
the news, and Arthur literally crumpled into his chair. In
addition to saying Arthur is now president, Charles Guto had
told the officers who apprehended him that Arthur quote and
all those men were his friends, and that Ghetto would
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have the arresting officers made chief of police. People had
already been suspicious of Arthur's character, and then these bizarre
statements that Ghetto was making were leading people to wonder
whether the vice president had orchestrated this shooting. The general
reaction in the press was stunned horror, both to the
shooting and to the idea that Arthur was going to
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become president. The Chicago Tribune called it a calamity, so
did former President Rutherford B. Hayes, and the word calamity
seems to be the one virtually everyone gravitated toward when
describing a potential Arthur presidency. That Arthur really didn't do
much to try to take control of the narrative. He
had always been extremely secretive when it came to the press,
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so rather than making some kind of statement or stepping
into lead as the president was incapacitated, he mostly hid.
He was also afraid to assume the president's duties because
he justifiably worried that it might reinforce the idea that
he had been behind the shooting. In a brief visit
to Washington, d C. He told the president's cabinet quote,
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I pray to God that the president will recover. God
knows I do not want the place I was never
elected to. As quickly as he could, he went back
to New York and then just tried to stay out
of the spotlight. As all of this was happening, Roscoe
ca Unkling was also in the news. He had resigned
his Senate seat along with the other senator from New York,
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in an attempt to derail the confirmation of Garfield's choice
for once again the New York City customs collector. He
hoped that the New York legislator would return him to
office after he had done this, and the media was
sure that if that happened and the president died, not
only would there be this calamitous Arthur presidency, but also
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the notorious Roscoe Conkling would really be running everything from
behind the scenes. Thirty one year old Julia Sand was
following all of this with bated breath. Julia was the
youngest child of Christian Henry Sand, who had immigrated from Germany,
and Isabella Julia Carter. Christian Sand had gone on to
become president of Metropolitan Gaslight Company of New York, so
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the family was well off and cultured. Julia had at
least nine siblings, and in one she and several family
members were living at seventy six East seventy four Street
in a home that her brother owned. She was educated
and unmarried. One of her relatives would later describe her
as a blue stocking, which was slang for an intellectual woman.
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She was also chronically ill. It's really not clear what
her diagnosis might have been, but she had problems with
her spine and a number of illnesses that sometimes left
her unable to leave her room. At other times, though
she was well enough to travel to some of the
area's more fashionable resorts and springs to try to regain
her health. You might describe Julia sand as a political junkie.
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She didn't have the right to vote, and there were
no women in New York state legislature or the federal government.
But she devoured political news, and she was informed about
candidates and elected officials and about the issues of the day.
And on August one, she wrote Chester A. Arthur, a
seven page letter. It began in part quote, the hours
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of Garfield's life are numbered. Before this meets her eye.
You may be president. The people are bowed in gree
But do you realize it not so much because he
is dying as because you are his successor what president
ever entered office under circumstances so sad? The day he
was shot? The thought rose in a thousand minds that
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you might be the instigator of the foul act? Is
that not a humiliation which cuts deeper than any bullet
can pierce? Then she went on to say, quote, but
making a man president can change him. Great emergencies awaken
generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If
there is a spark of true nobility in you, now
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is the occasion to let it shine. Faith in your
better nature forces me to write to you, but not
to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult
and more brave, reform. 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,
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rise to the emergency, disappoint our fears. And this letter
sand also imagined what might happen if Arthur were shot.
She wrote that no one would pray for his well being.
As so many people were doing at that moment. For Garfield. Instead,
she thought the American people would probably think they were
well rid of him. This letter was incredibly direct and forward,
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especially considering that Sand and Arthur were total strangers to
one another. She didn't pull any punches about how disliked
and distrusted he was and how justified those perceptions were,
but she also bolstered him up and imagined a world
in which Arthur left all of the wheeling and dealing
in corruption of the Republican political machine behind him. When
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Sand wrote this letter, Garfield's condition seemed relatively stable, but
also was not really improving. But then in the middle
of August, after being moved from the humid and swampy
capital to Long Branch, New Jersey, he took a sudden
turn for the worse. On September nine, that became clear
that he would not survive. Arthur got a telegram from
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the Attorney General informing him of this, which led him
to shut himself up in his home. Later that evening,
after some of his colleagues arrived, Arthur left and went
for a walk by himself. At about eleven thirty that night,
when Arthur was back at home, a reporter brought him
the news that the president had died. Arthur's response was
this quote, Oh, no, it cannot be true. It cannot
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be I have heard nothing. After he got a telegram
confirming that yes, it was true, he went to his
room and wept. In the early morning hours of September one,
Arthur composed himself. New York Supreme Court Judge John R.
Brady arrived at about two thirty in the morning to
administer the oath of office. A formal public inauguration was
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held in Washington, d C. Two days later, and he
got his next letter from Julius Sand about a week
after that. And we're going to talk more about that
after we have a little sponsor break. And Julia Sand's
next letter to Chester A Arthur. She wrote about what
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she saw as the unique nature of his grief over
the president's death. She noted that Garfield's wife and family
were all going through what ordinary families had weathered for
all of human history. Arthur's grief, on the other hand,
also carried the weight of his newfound and unasked for responsibility.
She wrote, quote, what we all endured during the terrible
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months of anxiety just passed. You two endured, intensified a
thousandfold by the reflection that you were the one human
being to benefit by his death, that you had been
opposed to him, that some believed you capable of having
plotted for his cruel end. You were alone in your sorrow,
perfectly isolated. She went on to praise his conduct during
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those last weeks of Garfield's life, and which he had,
by all appearances, avoided scandal and anxiously hoped for the
late president's recovery. She suggested that people's opinions of him
might be changing, But Arthur's presidency got off to an
inconsistent start. As we mentioned earlier in the show, he
wanted to renovate and redecorate the White House before moving
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in Louis Comfort. Tiffany's team removed thirty barrels of china
and twenty four wagons full of furniture in the process,
which people considered extravagant. He continued to associate with Republican stalwarts,
especially when he made trips back to New York, leading
people to wonder whether their worst fears for an Arthur
presidency would turn out to be true. Soon, though, he
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started shifting direction when Conkling demanded that Arthur replaced the
customs collector for New York with someone of his choosing,
Arthur refused. Not long after, he took up the cause
of civil service reform, people had already been trying to
reform the civil service system before garfields assassination, but while
most people had included that Guiteau was mentally ill, they
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also thought that this very corrupt and favoritism based civil
service system was at the heart of his illness. Consequently,
after Garfield's death, civil service reform became a major political issue,
with Arthur, who was a man who had directly benefited
from the existing system, being one of its champions. Sand
praised this commitment in her letters. Sand's letters ranged from
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almost casual conversation to specific matters of policy. On October one,
she wrote a letter in which she named herself his
quote little Dwarf, a reference to the idea that a
court jester, who often had some form of dwarf is um,
was the only person with the power to speak the
truth to the monarch. In another letter in the fall
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of that year, she suggested that Arthur come to visit her.
She also discouraged him from visiting his old political cronies
in New York and encouraged him to take care of
his health. In the fall of eighteen eighty two, she
told him, quote, remember that you are President of the
United States. Work only for the good of the country.
When the first version of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which
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banned immigration from China to the United States past Congress,
sand urged Arthur to veto it, which he did on
April four, calling its terms quote a breach of our
national faith. After that, sand wrote to him that the
veto delighted her, although her letter also revealed her own prejudices.
It said, quote, I sent for a horse, and there
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being no heathen Chinese around, showed my superiority to race
prejudice by taking a colored fellow being out to drive.
He never thanked me, though, and probably expects to be rewarded.
Such is the demoralizing effect of civil rights. Humans are complicated.
Uh Congress tried and failed to override Arthur's veto of
the Chinese Exclusion Act, and then passed a revised version
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that restricted immigration from China for ten years rather than twenty.
Arthur signed that version into law on May six, eight two.
Sand did not disguise her anger over this, saying, quote,
when you vetoed the Chinese bill, the better class of
people throughout the country were delighted. Now you sign it,
and what is the difference? As it now stands in
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quantity less, but in quality just as idiotic and unnecessary
as the first. The Czar of Russia might well respond
to your remonstrance against the persecution of the Jews with
an expostulation against the persecution of the Chinese. Yeah, she
was like, this bill is almost exactly the same as
the previous one, except that it's shorter. The deal yea.
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Not long after that, Congress passed the Rivers and Harbor's
Act of eighteen eighty two, which earmarked nineteen million dollars
for things like lighthouse upkeep and navigational buoys. But the
act was also viewed as funneling a lot of money
into the hands of corrupt local authorities. When Arthur vetoed it,
sand wrote to praise his decision, saying that she was
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deeply moved by his taking such a correct action under
such huge pressure from Congress to do the opposite. This time,
though Congress did overturn the president's veto, also In eighteen
eighty two, federal prosecution began in the Star Roots scandal,
which was a bribery, fraud, and corruption scandal connected to
mail delivery. Basically, as the United States expanded westward, mail
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delivery needed to expand along with it. The federal government
contracted with private carriers to handle these long remote western roots.
This looped back around to the spoils system, with the
contract process just riddled with bribery and corruption and chronyism,
including contracts being issued for roots that didn't exist and
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contractors that didn't actually do the work that they were
being paid to do. The first investigations into this had
started under President Grant in eighteen seventy two, but it
was during Arthur's administration that this corruption ring was finally
shut down. There was a whole see reads of federal prosecutions.
As the investigations and the trials were going on, Sand
advised Arthur to quote suffer for the sake of truth.
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In eighteen eighty two was also the year that Chester A.
Arthur visited Julia Sand. He went to her home in
New York on August twenty that year. His sudden appearance
rendered her speechless, something she chastised herself for in letters
she wrote later on, although they did discuss some of
his recent political decisions while he was there. She was
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also highly vexed that her entire family happened to be
at home that day and dominated the president's visit. In
a later letter, Sand suggested that she hoped for another visit,
maybe this time she could paint the president's portrait. On
January sixteenth, eighteen eighty three, Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil
Service Act, which was the nation's first comprehensive civil service
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reform bill. It made the selection of certain government employees
the responsibility of the Civil Service Commission, not of officeholders themselves.
Ex AM's were also implemented to encourage hiring that was
based on merit instead of favoritism. The bill's scope was limited.
It only covered Washington based federal jobs, along with customs
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houses and post offices that had more than fifty employees.
This was only about ten percent of federal jobs, although
subsequent administrations have expanded the scope of this act dramatically.
Sam's letters reveal her pleasure at his signing this bill
into law, but also some skepticism about whether he would
uphold its terms. This reflected the prevailing attitude among the
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general public as well, because with Arthur's history, it was
really hard to believe that he was committed to the
bill that he had signed. But as the summer of
eighteen eighty three wore on, he started assembling this new
commission and avoiding his own political cronies. As he was
doing that, he also started implementing all those reform measures
that he had promised. Sand wrote her last known letter
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to Arthur on September fifteenth three. Arthur's presidency continued until
March fourth, teen eight five. If he ever wrote her back,
she never mentioned it, and no such letters survives, so
we don't really know whether these letters directly influenced Arthur's
decisions as president, but his actions very strongly suggest that
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they mattered to him. Early in his presidency, he had
been diagnosed with Bright's disease, which was used to describe
various types of nephritis. There was no effective treatment or cure,
and by the time he got Sam's last known letter,
he was exhausted and in severe pain. Arthur made kind
of a half hearted campaign for re election, but the
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Republican Party did not select him as its candidate. This
ended a complicated and definitely not altogether positive presidency, but
it also was not at all the presidency that anyone
had expected when he took the oath of office. He
died on November eight, six. The day before he died,
Arthur ordered his son to burn his personal papers, almost
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certainly be as he was ashamed and embarrassed over his
earlier political career. Chester A. Arthur Jr. Supervised the filling
and refilling of three burn barrels, adding new papers as
the previous batch burned down, but twenty three letters from
Julia Sand were set aside in a special envelope labeled
in Arthur's handwriting. Julia Sand died in May of nineteen
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thirty three, at the age of eighty three. She was
buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Four years later, Chester A.
Arthur Junior died and Chester A. Arthur, the Third, who
went by Gavin, inherited what remained of his grandfather's papers.
He became intensely curious about these twenty three letters from
Julia Sand and their special oenveloope. On February nine, thirty eight,
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he placed an ad in the New York Harold Tribune
to see if he could find any of Sand's relatives.
He finally heard from a nephew who had actually been
there on the day of the president's visit. This nephew
suggested that Sand had kept her letters to Arthur a
secret from family and friends, and that the family had
no idea why the President would have visited them. In
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about nineteen ten, the Library of Congress undertook an extensive
search for any of Arthur's surviving papers. At that point,
the library only had two documents that bore his signature.
Over the next few decades that gathered a small collection,
largely from the descendants of Arthur's correspondence, but also from
Gavin Arthur. The library obtained Julius Sands letters in nineteen
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fifty eight. Gavin Arthur left the remainder of his father's
and grandfather's papers to the library. Upon his own death
in nineteen seventy two, he was the last surviving descendant
of President Chester. Arthur will end on a quote from
Sand's letter of August eighteen eighty two which really sums
up how Julia Sands saw herself. She was a quote
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poor little woman who has always been the youngest of
her family, who Consequently, if she lives to be fifty,
will always be treated like a child who would have
no fruit in life if she could not occasionally scold
some very big man. I like the idea that she
was like, I know I'm scolding this very big man,
but I'm definitely doing it anyway. Do you have any
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scoldie listener mail? It's not scoldie at all. This is
a very recent listener mail that's mostly about a much
older episode, but I wanted to read it because it
connects to something that we said today. It's from Jay.
Jay starts off talking a little bit about some kiddies. Uh,
Jay says, Hi, Holly and Tracy. Let me start off
(31:35):
by saying that my husband and I and our forecats
are huge fans of yours. Our middle cat, Pippin is
so sassy and full of spunk that we've taken to
calling her Pippin Fry. Our youngest cat, Olive, is called
Alive Wilson because she's the quieter, more reserved one. We
obviously have too much time on our hands, especially in winter.
My family. I find the owl story very charming to
(31:59):
my family and I live on a small farm in
north central Minnesota. It gets bitterly cold here in late winter,
and when it does, I always give your Schoolhouse Blizzard
of eighteen eighty eight episode another listen. I love this episode.
My farm is nestled in the rolling hills and lakes
of Minnesota's Central Lakes region. I can count at least
three one room school houses within a ten mile radius
(32:19):
of my home. Since I live in an area that
was hit hard by the blizzard, it's natural that I'm
drawn to this topic. I've seen a few blizzards since
moving to Minnesota, but nothing on the scale of the
eighteen eighty eight blizzard. The thought of going through that
experience with nothing but horses, buggies, oil lamps, and no
modern forms of communication is horrifying to me. It must
have felt like the end of the world. Anytime someone
(32:40):
in the area asks me about the blizzard, I always
direct them to your episode possible episode idea. I've searched
the archive and can find nothing related to Louis comfort
Tiffany the stained glass guy, not his father, the jewelry designer.
You should put him on your list of possible episodes.
I'm an amateur stained glass artist, and I really admire
the windows and lamps of Tiffany. Most people know of
(33:01):
Tiffany lamps, but what they don't realize is that the
majority of these lamps were designed and constructed by a
team of women called the Tiffany Girls. Clara Drischool was
the head of the Women's Department. Within the last ten years,
it's been revealed that she and her Tiffy Girls, not
Louis Tiffany, were responsible for the designs of many of
Tiffany's most iconic lamps. Take a dive into the topic.
If you get some time, keep up the good work.
(33:23):
You guys make our days a little more brighter. Shay
and also Eric, Thank you so much Shay and Eric
for sending this note. Uh, it was a total coincidence
that this came in over the weekend where um I
was working on this episode where we talk about the
President just Ra Arthur having Louis Comfort Tiffany totally redecorate
(33:44):
the White House. But he actually wound up on my
topic to do list. I think it was late last
year where it just seemed like every time I turned around,
somebody was talking about Louis Comfort Tiffany. Um I went
to a thing called History Camp and there somebody there
that was talking about a historic building restoration here in
Boston that was uh an entire decoration work done by
(34:08):
Louis Comfort Tiffany. And then shortly thereafter I was walking
through town and one of the churches that has all
the stained glass windows done by Tiffany was allowing people
to come in and look at the windows. Um and
It's like he just kept coming up over and over,
and I was like, I feel like the universe is
telling me to do a podcast on Louis Comfort Tiffany.
(34:30):
So I don't know when that might happen, but he
is on my list. I'm still very honored that a
Kidtye is, you know, in any way referred to with
my name. It's a bigger in my book. Yeah, I
have a cat named after I have two cats named
after two of my favorite imagineers at Disney, and I
(34:50):
know what an honor it was in my opinion names,
so it means a great deal to me. Also, um,
we split those cats up over which ones we think
are like me and which ones are like my husband.
So I understand this logic completely. That doesn't sound like
too much time on your hands to me at all. No,
we currently have no cats in my house a little bit.
We are currently hoping to change that in the relatively
(35:13):
near future. If you would like to write to us
about your kiddies or our podcast or doesn't say Hi,
We're a history podcast that how Stuff Works dot com
and then we're all over social media at miss in History.
That is where you'll find our Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter,
all that stuff. You can come to our website, which
is missed in History dot com and find the show
(35:35):
notes for all the episodes that Holly and I have
worked on together and searchable archive of every episode ever.
And you can subscribe to our show on the I
Heart Radio app or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more
(35:57):
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i our Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, the production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Trying. So.
In the eighteen eighties, decades before women had the right
to vote, Julius Sand wrote a series of letters to
(00:24):
President Chester A. Arthur, the first before he was even president,
and those letters might really have influenced his presidency. We'll
talk about that a little later. This all happened during
a period that's known as the Gilded Age. That term
was popularized by Mark Twain to describe a society that
was very glittery on the surface but also rotten underneath.
(00:45):
It was a time of reform and progress. Some of
the reformers that we've talked about on the show before
we're during this period. But there was also a lot
of corruption and inequality in a very deeply partisan political process,
and this story of Julia Sand and Chester A. Arthur
connects to all of that. Before we get to Julia
Sands letters, we need to talk about Chester A. Arthur's
(01:07):
career before he became president and how he wound up
in that office. Because her letters grow out of all
of that. He was born on October five, eighty nine.
His father, William, was a minister, a teacher, and an abolitionist,
and the family moved around a lot, living in towns
in Vermont, New York, and Quebec. Arthur, who was friends
called Chet, worked as a teacher and a school principal
(01:30):
before moving to New York City to pursue a career
in law. One of his first cases was known as
the Lemon slave case. Jonathan and Juliet Lemon of Virginia
had brought eight enslaved people with them to New York.
They were planning to immigrate to Texas, and they were
going to get on a steamer in New York to
go to Texas. But New York at that point had
(01:52):
abolished slavery, and a judge ordered for the enslaved people
that they brought with them to be freed. Arthur and
William w Everts successfully represented the State of New York
when the ruling was appealed, so that ruling stood that
these people should be freed. In eighteen fifty five, Arthur
also successfully represented past podcast subject Elizabeth Dennings Graham and
(02:15):
her discrimination suit against the Third Avenue Railway Company. Arthur
didn't come from money, and he was always looking for
a way to move up the economic ladder. To that end,
In the summer of eighteen fifty seven, he went to Kansas,
which was embroiled in a violent dispute over slavery. In
spite of his prior legal work and his family's deep
ties to abolition, a big motivation was that he hoped
(02:39):
to make money. That he was really thinking he might
get into some land speculation. It wasn't so much about
the principles of slavery there. He didn't stay in Kansas
very long, though. He was engaged to a woman named
Ellen Herndon, who went by Nell, who he would later marry.
Nell's father was killed on September twelfth, eighteen fifty seven,
when the s S seven Troll America sank off the
(03:01):
coast of Cape Hatteras after a storm. After learning that
her father had died, Nell wrote to Chester. She asked
him to come home, and he did. The Central America
had been carrying gold that was meant to replenish the
supply in New York Banks, so when the ship sank,
the loss of all that needed gold, combined with existing
economic issues set off a financial panic. If this sounds familiar,
(03:24):
it is the same shipwreck and panic that came up
in our Levi Strauss episode not too long ago. And
even though Arthur's legal work had earned him some respect,
he just didn't have the experience or connections to earn
a good living as a lawyer during such tumultuous economic times.
Looking for another direction for his career, Arthur became more
and more involved with New York's Republican political machine, if
(03:48):
you're not familiar with that term of a political machine
is a political party organization that has a boss or
a very small clique of people at the top, and
then a hierarchy of deeply loyal officials and supporters that
extending all through every level of the government and then
out into the community. The name comes from the organization's
ability to achieve its goals with an almost mechanical efficiency,
(04:10):
whether that goal is enacting some kind of actual change
or just staying in power. Especially in the nineteenth century,
these organizations became synonymous with bribery, fraud, and corruption. They
wanted to stay in power, not necessarily because they thought
they'd do a better job than someone else, but because
they ran the government in a way that personally benefited
(04:31):
the boss and his cronies. At the same time, political
machines could inspire genuinely deep loyalty among voters. For example,
the boss might hand out food and clothing in an
impoverished neighborhood, making it clear who was to thank for
that help. But when that wasn't enough incentive to get
voters support, the machine might also turn to intimidation, threats,
(04:53):
and fraud. Arthur got his start in all this working
with publisher and Republican boss Thomas wed who was a
huge proponent of what was known as the spoils system,
and that system was also connected to the way political
machines were working. Under this system, which is also known
as the patronage system, elected officials and political bosses routinely
(05:14):
handed out jobs to their friends and supporters basically as rewards.
This bread a lot of inefficiency and corruption. People were
being appointed to positions that they really had no qualifications
for just because they were connected to somebody in power,
or people were convinced to support someone in power by
being promised a job in exchange for that support. Arthur's
(05:35):
most obvious benefit from the spoil system was still to come.
Leading up to the Civil War, he joined the New
York State Militia, again more with the hope of advancement
than over the issue of slavery. He rose through the
ranks and eventually became Quartermaster General for the State of
New York. He also became connected to Edward D. Morgan,
another Republican who became Governor of New York. Arthur was
(05:57):
increasingly involved in Republican politics during and after the war.
By eighteen seventy, Thomas Weed was getting older and his
grip as the Boss was slipping. Moving into his place
was Roscoe Conkling, who eventually became a Senator. Arthur also
had connections to William Ate Tweed, known as Boss Tweed,
who ran the opposing and also notorious Democratic political machine
(06:21):
known as Tammany Hall. Tweed created a job for Arthur,
working as counsel to the City Tax Commission. He had
an annual salary of ten thousand dollars doing Nobody is
exactly sure what oh those jobs uh. Then on December one,
seventy one, Arthur became the customs collector for the Port
(06:42):
of New York. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to
the position based on the recommendations of Senator Conkling and
the previous customs collector, Tom Murphy. Murphy was leaving in
disgrace after numerous allegations of fraud, criminal activity, and firing
customs inspects to replace them with men loyal to Roscoe Conkling.
(07:04):
In spite of this tarnished reputation, he was allowed to
name his replacement. Customs collector was an incredibly powerful and
very lucrative role in terms of his own pay. Arthur
was earning as much as eighty thousand dollars a year,
which is roughly equivalent to more than half a million
dollars today, and this included a portion of the fines
(07:25):
that were collected and the goods that were received at
the port. The federal government made a lot of money
at the port too. There was no federal income tax,
so most of the federal government's revenue was coming from customs,
and most of those customs were coming through New York collectors.
So the government in general and the customs collectors specifically
had a financial incentive to assess fines and fees at
(07:47):
the port, or to seize goods for reasons that were
either overblown or flat out made up. Arthur had always
had an affinity for nice things. He liked fashionable clothes
and fine food and good cigars. Later on, after becoming president,
he would have Louis comfort Tiffany completely redecorate the White
House and hosts state dinners that required seven different wine
(08:10):
glasses for every guest. So this post as customs inspector
really let him indulge his love of finer things. As
he was taking a cut of all these fines and
the goods that were moving through the port, some of
those fines and seized goods being just for completely fabricated reasons.
People called him the gentleman Boss. The role also put
(08:31):
Arthur in a good position to do favors for his cronies,
like waving their shipments through the port without their having
to pay. Collected bribes and seized goods were passed around
the Republican political machine. Arthur also requested that his employees
donate to his faction of the Republican Party, known as
the Stalwarts, and this was supposedly voluntary but not really.
(08:55):
Civil service rules implemented in eighteen seventy two banned these
types of political contribute shins, but Arthur continued to request
them anyway. That cut of the revenue that Arthur personally
got also disappeared. In eighteen seventy four, after Congress passed
the Anti Moiety Act. That act followed an investigation into
a fine that was assessed. That fine was for more
(09:17):
than two hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, and it had
been levied against the firm of Phelps Dodge. Arthur and
several of his cronies had all gotten a share of
this fine. Arthur's cut of it was more than twenty
one thousand dollars, but it turned out that the fine
was almost entirely fraudulent. Corruption was threaded all through American
(09:38):
politics at this point, but Arthur developed a reputation for
being particularly corrupt. Plus two Republican factions, the Moderates and
the Stalwarts, were increasingly at odds with each other. After
moderate Republican Rutherford Behave succeeded Grant as president in an
incredibly contentious election, he nominated Theodore Roosevelt Senior to take
(10:00):
Arthur's place as customs collector, but the Stalwart faction of
the Senate repeatedly voted against confirming him, and Roosevelt died
of stomach cancer. With the matter still unsettled, Arthur was
finally suspended from the job on July eleven, seventy eight.
During his campaign, Rutherford Behayes had pledged to spend only
one term in office, so at the end of that term,
(10:22):
the Republican Party needed to find a new candidate to
run in the eighteen eight presidential election. The stalwarts preferred
former President Grant, and the moderates worried that re electing
Grant would cause more division, especially since that would mean
he was returning to office for a third term. We
haven't gotten into it, but his earlier terms had a
(10:42):
lot of the types of corruption that we've been talking about.
The anti Grant wing of the party wound up splitting
their votes between two candidates before eventually rallying around James A. Garfield.
After thirty six rounds of voting, Garfield finally became the
party's nominee. Arthur was selected as his running mate, mostly
to appease the Stalwarts and with the hope of getting
(11:04):
votes from the state of New York in the election.
Arthur accepted the nomination even though he was still grieving
from the recent death of his wife thinking of the
whole thing as an honor and a possible chance at redemption.
This wasn't a particularly popular move, though. Almost immediately, rumors
started to spread that Arthur had not been born in
the United States, that he was from Canada or from
(11:27):
his father's birthplace of Ireland, and thus was not eligible
to be vice president. This was such a convoluted and
weird and fascinating story. We're going to have a whole
podcast on it later. Hooray. In the end, Garfield won
the election, but on July two one, not quite four
months after his inauguration, he was shot by Charles J. Gutta.
(11:50):
Police immediately apprehended Ghetto, who proclaimed quote, I did it
and I will go to jail for it. I am
a stalwart, and Arthur is now president. Ghetto's behavior and
statements were odd and erratic beyond just the fact that
he had shot the president, and he's often described as
a disappointed office speaker because he had been repeatedly turned
(12:11):
away while trying to get an appointment as an ambassador.
He was so persistent that the Secretary of State eventually
ordered him to leave and never come back. But Chester A.
Arthur was notorious in this whole system of spoils and cronyism. So,
in his convoluted logic and disordered thinking, Ghetto seems to
have thought if Arthur were president, he would get a job.
(12:33):
And that's where Julia sand finally comes into this picture.
We will get to her after a quick sponsor break.
President James Garfield lived for nearly eighty days after being
shot on July second one, and during that time Chester A.
(12:54):
Arthur was at best kind of freaked out. He had
not really even considered that he had become president when
he accepted the nomination. Just being the vice president was
almost beyond the scope of his imagination. Arthur was on
a boat that was taking him from Albany back to
New York when the shooting happened. As the boat was
passing by a peer, someone shouted across the water that
(13:17):
Garfield had been assassinated. One of Arthur's colleagues on the
deck heard this and came to the saloon to given
the news, and Arthur literally crumpled into his chair. In
addition to saying Arthur is now president, Charles Guto had
told the officers who apprehended him that Arthur quote and
all those men were his friends, and that Ghetto would
(13:39):
have the arresting officers made chief of police. People had
already been suspicious of Arthur's character, and then these bizarre
statements that Ghetto was making were leading people to wonder
whether the vice president had orchestrated this shooting. The general
reaction in the press was stunned horror, both to the
shooting and to the idea that Arthur was going to
(14:01):
become president. The Chicago Tribune called it a calamity, so
did former President Rutherford B. Hayes, and the word calamity
seems to be the one virtually everyone gravitated toward when
describing a potential Arthur presidency. That Arthur really didn't do
much to try to take control of the narrative. He
had always been extremely secretive when it came to the press,
(14:24):
so rather than making some kind of statement or stepping
into lead as the president was incapacitated, he mostly hid.
He was also afraid to assume the president's duties because
he justifiably worried that it might reinforce the idea that
he had been behind the shooting. In a brief visit
to Washington, d C. He told the president's cabinet quote,
(14:44):
I pray to God that the president will recover. God
knows I do not want the place I was never
elected to. As quickly as he could, he went back
to New York and then just tried to stay out
of the spotlight. As all of this was happening, Roscoe
ca Unkling was also in the news. He had resigned
his Senate seat along with the other senator from New York,
(15:06):
in an attempt to derail the confirmation of Garfield's choice
for once again the New York City customs collector. He
hoped that the New York legislator would return him to
office after he had done this, and the media was
sure that if that happened and the president died, not
only would there be this calamitous Arthur presidency, but also
(15:28):
the notorious Roscoe Conkling would really be running everything from
behind the scenes. Thirty one year old Julia Sand was
following all of this with bated breath. Julia was the
youngest child of Christian Henry Sand, who had immigrated from Germany,
and Isabella Julia Carter. Christian Sand had gone on to
become president of Metropolitan Gaslight Company of New York, so
(15:50):
the family was well off and cultured. Julia had at
least nine siblings, and in one she and several family
members were living at seventy six East seventy four Street
in a home that her brother owned. She was educated
and unmarried. One of her relatives would later describe her
as a blue stocking, which was slang for an intellectual woman.
(16:11):
She was also chronically ill. It's really not clear what
her diagnosis might have been, but she had problems with
her spine and a number of illnesses that sometimes left
her unable to leave her room. At other times, though
she was well enough to travel to some of the
area's more fashionable resorts and springs to try to regain
her health. You might describe Julia sand as a political junkie.
(16:33):
She didn't have the right to vote, and there were
no women in New York state legislature or the federal government.
But she devoured political news, and she was informed about
candidates and elected officials and about the issues of the day.
And on August one, she wrote Chester A. Arthur, a
seven page letter. It began in part quote, the hours
(16:54):
of Garfield's life are numbered. Before this meets her eye.
You may be president. The people are bowed in gree
But do you realize it not so much because he
is dying as because you are his successor what president
ever entered office under circumstances so sad? The day he
was shot? The thought rose in a thousand minds that
(17:14):
you might be the instigator of the foul act? Is
that not a humiliation which cuts deeper than any bullet
can pierce? Then she went on to say, quote, but
making a man president can change him. Great emergencies awaken
generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If
there is a spark of true nobility in you, now
(17:34):
is the occasion to let it shine. Faith in your
better nature forces me to write to you, but not
to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult
and more brave, reform. 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,
(17:58):
rise to the emergency, disappoint our fears. And this letter
sand also imagined what might happen if Arthur were shot.
She wrote that no one would pray for his well being.
As so many people were doing at that moment. For Garfield. Instead,
she thought the American people would probably think they were
well rid of him. This letter was incredibly direct and forward,
(18:20):
especially considering that Sand and Arthur were total strangers to
one another. She didn't pull any punches about how disliked
and distrusted he was and how justified those perceptions were,
but she also bolstered him up and imagined a world
in which Arthur left all of the wheeling and dealing
in corruption of the Republican political machine behind him. When
(18:42):
Sand wrote this letter, Garfield's condition seemed relatively stable, but
also was not really improving. But then in the middle
of August, after being moved from the humid and swampy
capital to Long Branch, New Jersey, he took a sudden
turn for the worse. On September nine, that became clear
that he would not survive. Arthur got a telegram from
(19:03):
the Attorney General informing him of this, which led him
to shut himself up in his home. Later that evening,
after some of his colleagues arrived, Arthur left and went
for a walk by himself. At about eleven thirty that night,
when Arthur was back at home, a reporter brought him
the news that the president had died. Arthur's response was
this quote, Oh, no, it cannot be true. It cannot
(19:27):
be I have heard nothing. After he got a telegram
confirming that yes, it was true, he went to his
room and wept. In the early morning hours of September one,
Arthur composed himself. New York Supreme Court Judge John R.
Brady arrived at about two thirty in the morning to
administer the oath of office. A formal public inauguration was
(19:49):
held in Washington, d C. Two days later, and he
got his next letter from Julius Sand about a week
after that. And we're going to talk more about that
after we have a little sponsor break. And Julia Sand's
next letter to Chester A Arthur. She wrote about what
(20:11):
she saw as the unique nature of his grief over
the president's death. She noted that Garfield's wife and family
were all going through what ordinary families had weathered for
all of human history. Arthur's grief, on the other hand,
also carried the weight of his newfound and unasked for responsibility.
She wrote, quote, what we all endured during the terrible
(20:33):
months of anxiety just passed. You two endured, intensified a
thousandfold by the reflection that you were the one human
being to benefit by his death, that you had been
opposed to him, that some believed you capable of having
plotted for his cruel end. You were alone in your sorrow,
perfectly isolated. She went on to praise his conduct during
(20:56):
those last weeks of Garfield's life, and which he had,
by all appearances, avoided scandal and anxiously hoped for the
late president's recovery. She suggested that people's opinions of him
might be changing, But Arthur's presidency got off to an
inconsistent start. As we mentioned earlier in the show, he
wanted to renovate and redecorate the White House before moving
(21:17):
in Louis Comfort. Tiffany's team removed thirty barrels of china
and twenty four wagons full of furniture in the process,
which people considered extravagant. He continued to associate with Republican stalwarts,
especially when he made trips back to New York, leading
people to wonder whether their worst fears for an Arthur
presidency would turn out to be true. Soon, though, he
(21:39):
started shifting direction when Conkling demanded that Arthur replaced the
customs collector for New York with someone of his choosing,
Arthur refused. Not long after, he took up the cause
of civil service reform, people had already been trying to
reform the civil service system before garfields assassination, but while
most people had included that Guiteau was mentally ill, they
(22:02):
also thought that this very corrupt and favoritism based civil
service system was at the heart of his illness. Consequently,
after Garfield's death, civil service reform became a major political issue,
with Arthur, who was a man who had directly benefited
from the existing system, being one of its champions. Sand
praised this commitment in her letters. Sand's letters ranged from
(22:25):
almost casual conversation to specific matters of policy. On October one,
she wrote a letter in which she named herself his
quote little Dwarf, a reference to the idea that a
court jester, who often had some form of dwarf is um,
was the only person with the power to speak the
truth to the monarch. In another letter in the fall
(22:46):
of that year, she suggested that Arthur come to visit her.
She also discouraged him from visiting his old political cronies
in New York and encouraged him to take care of
his health. In the fall of eighteen eighty two, she
told him, quote, remember that you are President of the
United States. Work only for the good of the country.
When the first version of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which
(23:08):
banned immigration from China to the United States past Congress,
sand urged Arthur to veto it, which he did on
April four, calling its terms quote a breach of our
national faith. After that, sand wrote to him that the
veto delighted her, although her letter also revealed her own prejudices.
It said, quote, I sent for a horse, and there
(23:31):
being no heathen Chinese around, showed my superiority to race
prejudice by taking a colored fellow being out to drive.
He never thanked me, though, and probably expects to be rewarded.
Such is the demoralizing effect of civil rights. Humans are complicated.
Uh Congress tried and failed to override Arthur's veto of
the Chinese Exclusion Act, and then passed a revised version
(23:54):
that restricted immigration from China for ten years rather than twenty.
Arthur signed that version into law on May six, eight two.
Sand did not disguise her anger over this, saying, quote,
when you vetoed the Chinese bill, the better class of
people throughout the country were delighted. Now you sign it,
and what is the difference? As it now stands in
(24:16):
quantity less, but in quality just as idiotic and unnecessary
as the first. The Czar of Russia might well respond
to your remonstrance against the persecution of the Jews with
an expostulation against the persecution of the Chinese. Yeah, she
was like, this bill is almost exactly the same as
the previous one, except that it's shorter. The deal yea.
(24:40):
Not long after that, Congress passed the Rivers and Harbor's
Act of eighteen eighty two, which earmarked nineteen million dollars
for things like lighthouse upkeep and navigational buoys. But the
act was also viewed as funneling a lot of money
into the hands of corrupt local authorities. When Arthur vetoed it,
sand wrote to praise his decision, saying that she was
(25:02):
deeply moved by his taking such a correct action under
such huge pressure from Congress to do the opposite. This time,
though Congress did overturn the president's veto, also In eighteen
eighty two, federal prosecution began in the Star Roots scandal,
which was a bribery, fraud, and corruption scandal connected to
mail delivery. Basically, as the United States expanded westward, mail
(25:25):
delivery needed to expand along with it. The federal government
contracted with private carriers to handle these long remote western roots.
This looped back around to the spoils system, with the
contract process just riddled with bribery and corruption and chronyism,
including contracts being issued for roots that didn't exist and
(25:45):
contractors that didn't actually do the work that they were
being paid to do. The first investigations into this had
started under President Grant in eighteen seventy two, but it
was during Arthur's administration that this corruption ring was finally
shut down. There was a whole see reads of federal prosecutions.
As the investigations and the trials were going on, Sand
advised Arthur to quote suffer for the sake of truth.
(26:08):
In eighteen eighty two was also the year that Chester A.
Arthur visited Julia Sand. He went to her home in
New York on August twenty that year. His sudden appearance
rendered her speechless, something she chastised herself for in letters
she wrote later on, although they did discuss some of
his recent political decisions while he was there. She was
(26:29):
also highly vexed that her entire family happened to be
at home that day and dominated the president's visit. In
a later letter, Sand suggested that she hoped for another visit,
maybe this time she could paint the president's portrait. On
January sixteenth, eighteen eighty three, Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil
Service Act, which was the nation's first comprehensive civil service
(26:51):
reform bill. It made the selection of certain government employees
the responsibility of the Civil Service Commission, not of officeholders themselves.
Ex AM's were also implemented to encourage hiring that was
based on merit instead of favoritism. The bill's scope was limited.
It only covered Washington based federal jobs, along with customs
(27:11):
houses and post offices that had more than fifty employees.
This was only about ten percent of federal jobs, although
subsequent administrations have expanded the scope of this act dramatically.
Sam's letters reveal her pleasure at his signing this bill
into law, but also some skepticism about whether he would
uphold its terms. This reflected the prevailing attitude among the
(27:32):
general public as well, because with Arthur's history, it was
really hard to believe that he was committed to the
bill that he had signed. But as the summer of
eighteen eighty three wore on, he started assembling this new
commission and avoiding his own political cronies. As he was
doing that, he also started implementing all those reform measures
that he had promised. Sand wrote her last known letter
(27:53):
to Arthur on September fifteenth three. Arthur's presidency continued until
March fourth, teen eight five. If he ever wrote her back,
she never mentioned it, and no such letters survives, so
we don't really know whether these letters directly influenced Arthur's
decisions as president, but his actions very strongly suggest that
(28:15):
they mattered to him. Early in his presidency, he had
been diagnosed with Bright's disease, which was used to describe
various types of nephritis. There was no effective treatment or cure,
and by the time he got Sam's last known letter,
he was exhausted and in severe pain. Arthur made kind
of a half hearted campaign for re election, but the
(28:36):
Republican Party did not select him as its candidate. This
ended a complicated and definitely not altogether positive presidency, but
it also was not at all the presidency that anyone
had expected when he took the oath of office. He
died on November eight, six. The day before he died,
Arthur ordered his son to burn his personal papers, almost
(28:59):
certainly be as he was ashamed and embarrassed over his
earlier political career. Chester A. Arthur Jr. Supervised the filling
and refilling of three burn barrels, adding new papers as
the previous batch burned down, but twenty three letters from
Julia Sand were set aside in a special envelope labeled
in Arthur's handwriting. Julia Sand died in May of nineteen
(29:22):
thirty three, at the age of eighty three. She was
buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Four years later, Chester A.
Arthur Junior died and Chester A. Arthur, the Third, who
went by Gavin, inherited what remained of his grandfather's papers.
He became intensely curious about these twenty three letters from
Julia Sand and their special oenveloope. On February nine, thirty eight,
(29:46):
he placed an ad in the New York Harold Tribune
to see if he could find any of Sand's relatives.
He finally heard from a nephew who had actually been
there on the day of the president's visit. This nephew
suggested that Sand had kept her letters to Arthur a
secret from family and friends, and that the family had
no idea why the President would have visited them. In
(30:06):
about nineteen ten, the Library of Congress undertook an extensive
search for any of Arthur's surviving papers. At that point,
the library only had two documents that bore his signature.
Over the next few decades that gathered a small collection,
largely from the descendants of Arthur's correspondence, but also from
Gavin Arthur. The library obtained Julius Sands letters in nineteen
(30:29):
fifty eight. Gavin Arthur left the remainder of his father's
and grandfather's papers to the library. Upon his own death
in nineteen seventy two, he was the last surviving descendant
of President Chester. Arthur will end on a quote from
Sand's letter of August eighteen eighty two which really sums
up how Julia Sands saw herself. She was a quote
(30:50):
poor little woman who has always been the youngest of
her family, who Consequently, if she lives to be fifty,
will always be treated like a child who would have
no fruit in life if she could not occasionally scold
some very big man. I like the idea that she
was like, I know I'm scolding this very big man,
but I'm definitely doing it anyway. Do you have any
(31:14):
scoldie listener mail? It's not scoldie at all. This is
a very recent listener mail that's mostly about a much
older episode, but I wanted to read it because it
connects to something that we said today. It's from Jay.
Jay starts off talking a little bit about some kiddies. Uh,
Jay says, Hi, Holly and Tracy. Let me start off
(31:35):
by saying that my husband and I and our forecats
are huge fans of yours. Our middle cat, Pippin is
so sassy and full of spunk that we've taken to
calling her Pippin Fry. Our youngest cat, Olive, is called
Alive Wilson because she's the quieter, more reserved one. We
obviously have too much time on our hands, especially in winter.
My family. I find the owl story very charming to
(31:59):
my family and I live on a small farm in
north central Minnesota. It gets bitterly cold here in late winter,
and when it does, I always give your Schoolhouse Blizzard
of eighteen eighty eight episode another listen. I love this episode.
My farm is nestled in the rolling hills and lakes
of Minnesota's Central Lakes region. I can count at least
three one room school houses within a ten mile radius
(32:19):
of my home. Since I live in an area that
was hit hard by the blizzard, it's natural that I'm
drawn to this topic. I've seen a few blizzards since
moving to Minnesota, but nothing on the scale of the
eighteen eighty eight blizzard. The thought of going through that
experience with nothing but horses, buggies, oil lamps, and no
modern forms of communication is horrifying to me. It must
have felt like the end of the world. Anytime someone
(32:40):
in the area asks me about the blizzard, I always
direct them to your episode possible episode idea. I've searched
the archive and can find nothing related to Louis comfort
Tiffany the stained glass guy, not his father, the jewelry designer.
You should put him on your list of possible episodes.
I'm an amateur stained glass artist, and I really admire
the windows and lamps of Tiffany. Most people know of
(33:01):
Tiffany lamps, but what they don't realize is that the
majority of these lamps were designed and constructed by a
team of women called the Tiffany Girls. Clara Drischool was
the head of the Women's Department. Within the last ten years,
it's been revealed that she and her Tiffy Girls, not
Louis Tiffany, were responsible for the designs of many of
Tiffany's most iconic lamps. Take a dive into the topic.
If you get some time, keep up the good work.
(33:23):
You guys make our days a little more brighter. Shay
and also Eric, Thank you so much Shay and Eric
for sending this note. Uh, it was a total coincidence
that this came in over the weekend where um I
was working on this episode where we talk about the
President just Ra Arthur having Louis Comfort Tiffany totally redecorate
(33:44):
the White House. But he actually wound up on my
topic to do list. I think it was late last
year where it just seemed like every time I turned around,
somebody was talking about Louis Comfort Tiffany. Um I went
to a thing called History Camp and there somebody there
that was talking about a historic building restoration here in
Boston that was uh an entire decoration work done by
(34:08):
Louis Comfort Tiffany. And then shortly thereafter I was walking
through town and one of the churches that has all
the stained glass windows done by Tiffany was allowing people
to come in and look at the windows. Um and
It's like he just kept coming up over and over,
and I was like, I feel like the universe is
telling me to do a podcast on Louis Comfort Tiffany.
(34:30):
So I don't know when that might happen, but he
is on my list. I'm still very honored that a
Kidtye is, you know, in any way referred to with
my name. It's a bigger in my book. Yeah, I
have a cat named after I have two cats named
after two of my favorite imagineers at Disney, and I
(34:50):
know what an honor it was in my opinion names,
so it means a great deal to me. Also, um,
we split those cats up over which ones we think
are like me and which ones are like my husband.
So I understand this logic completely. That doesn't sound like
too much time on your hands to me at all. No,
we currently have no cats in my house a little bit.
We are currently hoping to change that in the relatively
(35:13):
near future. If you would like to write to us
about your kiddies or our podcast or doesn't say Hi,
We're a history podcast that how Stuff Works dot com
and then we're all over social media at miss in History.
That is where you'll find our Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter,
all that stuff. You can come to our website, which
is missed in History dot com and find the show
(35:35):
notes for all the episodes that Holly and I have
worked on together and searchable archive of every episode ever.
And you can subscribe to our show on the I
Heart Radio app or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more
(35:57):
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i our Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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