The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-10-18

The public anxiety for Garfield
through his long battle, with death
was deepened by a general dread of
the vice-president succeeding to the
presidency. The people as a whole
knew nothing of Chester Alan Arthur
except that he had been only lately
removed from the collectorship of the
port of New York as machine poll
tician, and that he had been nomi-
mated for the vice-presidency as a
henchman of Roscoe Conkling.
He had practiced law in New York
City for quarter of a century with
out winning distinction at the bar.
Even in the upheaval of the Civil war
he remained in comparative obscurity
as the quarterma ster general of the
state.
After the war he arose to be the
Republican boss of New York City,
with his headquarters in the custom
house. True to the type, he preferred
to remain always behind the scenes,
making few speeches and never be-
coming a candida te for an elective Of
flee until his nomination for the sec
ond highest office in the land.
If Arthur had not been put out of
the custom house he never would have
field was nominated in the Chicago
convention the victorious Half
Breeds" offered the second place on
the ticket to the disgruntled 'Stal-
warts" like bone thrown to a growl-
ing dog. Arthur whispered to Conk-
ling that he would like it, and his
chief carelessly tossed it to him. The
ex-collector wanted the nomination as
a vindication for his removal by
President Hayes.
After Arthur had been sitting in
the vice-president's chair only a little
more than two weeks he opened a
big white house envelope one day and
flushed as he glanced at the unex-
pected contents-the nomination of a
hated Half Breed" to the collector
ship of the port of New York. With
an excited gesture he summoned Sen
ators Conkling and Plat, and the
three "Stalwa rts' famed up with
rage at the challenge to them from
the new administration. When the
New York senators resigned their
seats and appealed to the Legislature
of their state to re-elect them as a
protest a gainst the administration the
spectacle of the vice-president de
scending to that melee lent color tc
the already unfavorable impression oil
him in the public mind.
When in the midst of the fight and
a losing fight, Garfield was shot, the
American people revolted at the
thought that Arthur and the "Stal
warts" should profit by the assassina
ton. The public mind revolted also
at the prospect of a political boss en-
, throned in the white house, with hi
motley following about him.
The popular picture of Arthur, as &
city politician out Of the pages Of
Puck, was distorted and untrue simp
ly because the background was omit
ted from it. The real, the native char
acter of the man had been shaped III
surroundings very different from
those in which the country found hin
when he first came under its atten
ton. Born in Vermont to a Baptist
minister, a man of education and high
principles, who had come over from
Ireland and who soon afterward set
tied in New York state, Arthur haC
grown up in village parsonages, where
the living was plain and the thinking
high.
The father belonged to that mora
and intellectual aristocracy of AboliI
ionists, who braved the contempt Of
wealth and the persecution of tht
thoughtleSs for the sake Of an ideal
The son had received an education ir
| a good rural school and had ploddeC
his way to the bar by teaching country