American History - Part 128 - Arthur - Surprisingly Good - Reformist
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 06/07/2013

Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
President James Garfield was shot and seriously wounded in the summer of eighteen eighty-one. The man who shot him said he supported the political group that supported Vice President Chester Arthur.
The gunman was found to be insane. But some people were ready to believe the worst about Vice President Arthur. They knew that many of the vice president's political allies disliked President Garfield. They thought the vice president might have helped the gunman in some way.
This week in our series, Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant tell what happened after President Garfield was shot.
For a time, it seemed the president might get better. But the bullet wound became infected. He died of the infection two months after he was shot. Vice President Arthur took the oath of office a few hours after the president's death.
Chester Arthur had been a successful lawyer. He had worked in politics for a number of years. But he had never before held an elected office. Many Americans questioned his ability to serve in the White House. One person put it this   "Chet Arthur -- president of the United States. Good God!"
Almost everyone feared Arthur would be a tool of a Republican Party leader in New York, Roscoe Conkling. They were sure Conkling would be the real power in Arthur's administration. They were wrong. Chester Arthur surprised everyone. He broke all his ties with the Conkling political machine. He remained independent of any party group.
Arthur asked Garfield's cabinet to resign. He chose new men for all but one department.
In his first message to Congress, President Arthur asked for changes in the way government jobs were filled. He proposed a new civil service system that would let ability -- not politics -- decide who got government jobs.
Republican Party leaders opposed these proposals. The civil service system would stop them from giving federal jobs to their supporters. It would destroy much of their power.
These Republican leaders controlled Congress. They refused to act on the civil service proposals.
Civil service reform, however, was an important issue. President Garfield had been assassinated by a man who believed he should have gotten a government job because of his politics. Also, new cases of dishonesty had been discovered in the Post Office department. The public began to demand laws to clean up the civil service.
In eighteen eighty-two, a new Congress was elected. The new Congress was controlled by the Democratic Party.
President Arthur again appealed for civil service reform. This time, he got results. The new Congress passed a civil service bill that required ten percent of all federal jobs to be filled through competitive examinations. This ten percent included half the officials in the Post Office Department. It included most workers at federal customs houses.
The bill also said it was illegal for politicians to ask government employees for campaign money. And it set up a civil service committee to enforce the new law.
President Arthur also found himself faced with an unusual problem. The government was earning more money than it needed. Most of the money came from tariffs -- taxes on imports. Each year, tariffs brought in one hundred million dollars more than the government needed.
The import taxes had been set high to protect American industries from foreign competition. President Arthur wanted to reduce the tariffs. Congress wanted to keep them high. Industrial leaders wanted to keep them high, too. They did not want to compete with low-priced foreign products.
Congress saw no problem with the extra money brought in by high tariffs. It found many ways to spend it.

In eighteen eighty-two, Congress passed the "Rivers and Harbors Bill." The bill would cost almost nineteen million dollars. President Arthur vetoed the bill. He said it would waste too much money. But Congress passed the bill into law over his veto.
Next, President Arthur urged Congress to form a committee to find a way to reduce tariffs. Congress formed the committee. The committee proposed that tariffs be reduced by twenty percent. But Congress did not consider the proposal when it began debating a new tariff bill.
President Arthur was more successful in getting Congress to reduce the public debt. During his term, the debt was cut by more than four hundred million dollars.
Chester Arthur's efforts for honest government and lower taxes won him much support among the people. But he could not win the support of his Republican Party.
It was not until three days after the voting that election officials announced Cleveland had won. His victory set off wild celebrations among Democrats across the country.