Show FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT OUR presidents by JAMES MORGAN CHESTER A ARTHUR 1 0 0 1830 oct 5 chester alan arthur born at fairfield ver vermont m ont 1848 gra graduated at union college schenectady 1861 2 quartermaster general of new york state 1871 8 co collector lector of the port of nw new york removed by haye 1880 november vember Ne elected vice president 1831 1881 sept 19 took the oath as president aged fifty TUU 1111 public anxiety tor for garfield through h his long battle with death was deepened deepened by a general dread of it the vice presidents succeeding to the presidency the people as a whole knew nothing of chester alan arthur except piat he had been only lately removed from the of the port of new york as ft a machine politician it and that he be bad been nominated tor for the nice presidency as a henchman henc liann of roscoe koscoe conkling after athur had been sitting in the vice presidents chair only a little more than two weeks he opened a big white house envelope one day find and flushed as he glanced at thil the unexpected contents the nomination of a hated halfbreed half breed to the of the port of new york with an excited gesture ce sture lie he summoned senators Senn tors n 1 11 N 1 atna 1 chester A arthur conkling cockling and platt and the three stalwarts Stal warts flamed up with rage nt at the challenge to thew them from the new 5 1 nd when tile the new york senators resigned abir seats and appealed to the legislature of their state to reelect re elect then them as a protest a against adust the administration the spectacle of the vice president descending to that melee lent color to the already unfavorable impression of jilin him in the public mind when in ill the midst of tile tight and a losing fight ga neld was shot the american people revolted at the thought that arthur and the stal warts should profit by the assassination the public mind revolted also at the prospect of a political boss enthroned in the white house with his bis motley money following lol about him that popular picture of arthur us as a city politician out of the pages paces ot of puck was distorted and untrue simply because beenu 4 the background was omitted from it the real the nathe character of the man had bad been shaped in sur cry different frona from those in chich the country found him when he first fame under its attention corn born j in vermont to a baptist minister it i man of education and high principles who had come over from ireland anti and ho soon afterward settled in new 1 york ork state arthur had bad grown up in parsonages personages nages where tile the living was MRS plain and the thinking high when the great test came and he stood silently for three months if in the shadow of the high office arthur found anil and he left petty politics and factions behind him as he entered the white house the public was incredulous at first but was convinced at last that he honestly meant to be president of all the people some of his old associates in machine politics were as astonished at the change that had come over their chet as falstaff Fal statE and ills his cronies were when nhen prince hal became kins KID henry V not that the new president coldly repelled the chil claims lils of friendship lie he simply put first his obal obligations a to the whole country though it cost jilin dear in the regard of men like grant and conkling who set him down as an ingrate why general it if you were still president of the new york county republican committee you would be lere hero right now asking for this very aning protested the lead of that organization As aa president ot of the new kew york 1 county republican committee ar 1 1 thur frankly admitted with a smile 1 I certainly would but since I 1 came here I 1 have learned lel lined that chester A ari thur Is one man and the president of t the united states to Is another AN ERA or OF REFORM 0 1683 1883 jan 16 arthur signed the civil service law 1884 defeated for the republican lic in nomination by james G blaine 1836 1886 nov 13 died in N new ew york aged fifty si six x 0 S IT T IS one of the pranks of 0 fate that chester A arthur whom president hayes put out of the new york custom house 80 as Is a and a political cal boss should find himself in the white house seven months after hayes left it and conducting a reform administration it was the mandate and lesson of garfielda gal Gar fields assassination that we must get rid of factions and spoils or the government itself in might ight next be struck down as its chief had bad been arthur saw that this was the logic of the tragedy which had thrust him into the presidency and lie he did his dis best to clean house the race for preferment had excited an unnatural athral appetite for public office ice and the getting of a job was regarded as exhilarating sport from policeman fireman and letter carrier to ia and consulship every place on the payroll of city state or 0 nation not I 1 on wont went by favor two endless groces were forever moving one ma made d e up of those who vilio had been turned 0 out ut or turned down and the other of those thosa who were struggling to get in the civil service law which was passed in arthurs arthues administration took out of politics the departmental clerk ships in washington but 85 per cent of the federal employees as a whole were left under the spoils system nevertheless the difficult first step had bad been token toward the present comprehensive sa stem when all but a few hundred of the hundreds of thousands of places are open equally to self re specking spec ting applicants regardless of parties or politicians arthur also was the useful instrument in carrying forward the reconciliation ellia tion of the sections ile he was the first president in his generation who made no reference in his a donal annual messages to the south or to a southern question tie ile was indeed almost the first president in 50 years who felt free to ignore the unhappy issues ol of sectionalism when he stepped into the white house arthur found ills his party rent by factions lie he left it more nearly united than it had been before in 20 years and with at least a chance to win again 16 in 1834 he might himself have been the republican nominee in that year if he had not scrupulously refused to lo take an active part in ill promoting ills his candidacy lie he looked as well as acted the president the first city manin man in a line oi of rural or small town men arthur was the best dressed man to sit in the chair since washington and perhaps the handsomest with a tu graceful figure the manners of the great world and a grave but easy courtesy although a mi widower clower president hla his sister mrs mcelroy McK lroy was a charming mistress bistre mis s of the white house and under them the social life of the mansion took on oil a more sumptuous tone hla HIS son and namesake was away at school much of the tinie time but his little daughter doughi I 1 r nellie arthur lit it up the household e with her song anti and laughter mrs arthur died only in the year b be fore her husbands unexpected rise to Q za Y 1 I 1 cl s n 41 I 1 mrs john E MI melroy Elroy the presidency and her absence from ills side was a haunting sorrow to ar declining to remove the collector of tile the port of new york whom garfield hail had appointed against his protest he even permitted that officeholder to leuie leane his post and oppose him in the I 1 contest at the national convention no other president has done so little as arthur did to obtain a second terni term it was well not only for the sake of the high example he set but for his awil own sake also arthurs health was wa not equal to the strain of another administration and another term in ill the white house where he lived not wisely but too well in less than two years after leaving the presidency followed by the good will of nt all the people he was dead ot of apoplexy 1330 2220 by james moreen |