What I've been reading

Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield by Kenneth D. Ackerman. 551 pages, 2003, Carroll & Graf Publishers.

Long-time readers of the blog may recall that I absolutely adore the Gilded Age. It is by far my favorite time period of American history. One problem with this era (let's say the end of the Civil War, 1865, to the beginning of the United States' involvement in World War I, 1917) is that there aren't a lot of books written about it, or at least books you can find in your average bookstore. I mean, there's plenty written about Theodore Roosevelt (not that there's anything wrong with that), but there's a lot more to the time period than Teddy, right? I mean, that Grover Cleveland - he was a pretty neat, guy, right? Where's his biography???? (Okay, they exist. But you get my point!) The other big topic of "Gilded Age" writing is the expansion of the white man into red man territory. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm a bit sick of George Custer.

So I was happy to see this book, as Garfield's assassination is probably the least well-known of all the presidential killings. Granted, there have only been four of them, but Lincoln's, McKinley's, and Kennedy's are of much more interest to the general public, even if McKinley's is only such because he was succeeded by Roosevelt. I mean, Garfield was succeeded by Chester A. Arthur, whose name does not resound in the Presidential Pantheon (although he, as well as Garfield, probably doesn't get as much respect as they ought to). I certainly didn't know much about Garfield's life and death, and even after reading Assassination Vacation, I didn't, as Vowell focused more on Charles Guiteau, the assassin, than Garfield himself. This book doesn't focus on Garfield's life as much as it focuses on the events surrounding his nomination and brief presidency, and it's a fascinating read.

Ackerman begins with an argument in 1866. Two titans of the late 19th-century American political scene, Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York and Senator James Blaine of Maine, got into an argument over a piece of a bill, and this tiny little disagreement escalated into a name-calling donnybrook on the Senate floor. Both men were extremely proud, and this argument led to a lifetime of acrimony that influenced the political course of the country. It's fun to read about these bitter fights in Congress because these days, everyone is so polite. Sure, the two parties don't agree with each other and take shots at the policies of their opponents, but Conkling and Blaine were both Republicans, for one, and it's rare that one senator calls another from the same party a liar in public, as Conkling did to Blaine that day in April 1866. That's just a taste of the political scene during the Gilded Age, where the men spoke high-mindedly but were far more insulting than they are today.

Then we flash to the Republican Convention in Chicago in late May 1880. Remember when conventions were held in late May? Okay, probably not. The other interesting thing about conventions back in those days was that no one knew who the nominee was. There were no primaries, so the two parties just got together to decide on a candidate. In 1880, the Republican party had developed a rift between the "Stalwarts," those who supported Ulysses Grant's bid for a third term as president, and "Half-Breeds," those who didn't back Grant because of the scandals of his two terms. Grant had left office in 1877, but in the years since, he had become more popular, mainly because of the ineffectiveness of Rutherford Hayes, the man who replaced him. Conkling was Grant's biggest supporter, and he threw the weight of the New York Republican machine behind him. James Blaine, who had run for president in 1876, was another candidate, representing those who wanted to move past Grant. John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury (and brother of Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman), was the dark horse candidate. He counted among his supporters James Garfield, the senator-elect from Ohio.

The backroom dealings of the parties is fascinating to read about, especially because the actual wannabe candidates back then didn't attend the convention - campaigning was considered unseemly. So their proxies campaigned for them, and they had to convince delegates to throw their lot in with a certain candidate. Sherman didn't have much support, but it was hoped that he could swing the nomination one way or the other. Conkling had heard rumblings about a group of Republican delegates from New York breaking from him and not supporting Grant, something he could not abide. Parties ran things with iron fists back then - you voted for a party, not really a candidate - and the idea of New York Republicans breaking with their party boss was astonishing. Yet break they did, as did delegates from two other supposedly "solid" Grant states - Illinois and Pennsylvania. Without all of the delegates from those states, neither Grant nor Blaine got enough votes on the first ballot to secure the nomination, and led to more wrangling.

Garfield was a long shot to get the nomination, obviously, as he was actually in Chicago as a supporter of Sherman. As the balloting went on (this was the longest Republican convention, at 36 ballots; Democrats needed a two-thirds majority to select a nominee, so many of theirs went longer), Garfield suddenly became a viable compromise candidate. Blaine would never allow his delegates to support Grant because of his vitriol toward Conkling, and Garfield was seen as someone whom Blaine would support. When his name was first mentioned, Garfield actually protested, but soon the support for him became a groundswell. Unbelievably, Garfield became the nominee, and as a compromise, he picked Chester Arthur, Conkling's protégé, as his running mate. Actually, based on the rules of the day, the convention picked Arthur. Garfield had no choice in the matter.

Ackerman then has to bring Charles Guiteau into the proceedings, which he does efficiently. Guiteau was a huge fan of Conkling and the New York Republican Party, and he began writing speeches in order to get the Garfield/Arthur ticket elected. He even wrote a speech that he later claimed was crucial to Garfield's win. He hung out at the headquarters of the campaign and spoke often to Arthur, believing that he was friends with the vice presidential candidate. Of course, he barely registered with the higher-ups of the party, although they later recalled speaking to him. Ackerman makes the point that patronage was the way business got done in 19th-century politics, and Guiteau was just doing what many others did - he helped out the campaign with the expectation that he would be rewarded in the new regime. Of course, he was basically a nobody, so that probably wouldn't happen, but it didn't stop Guiteau from believing that he was more important than he really was.

Garfield won the election, of course, and then his problems began. He had to satisfy two powerful members of the party who hated each other - Blaine and Conkling. As he had Arthur as a vice president, he offered the job of Secretary of State to Blaine, which angered Conkling, as that position was far more important than that of VP back in the day. Conkling was peeved that Rutherford Hayes had fired Arthur as Collector of the Port of New York, the most lucrative job in the civil service, and he wanted one of his men installed in that post. Garfield balked at it even though the Stalwarts claimed he had promised it to them. When this became public knowledge, it sent Guiteau over the edge. Ackerman makes it clear that Guiteau didn't shoot Garfield because he didn't get the job he wanted; he shot him because he believed Garfield was screwing his "friend" Chester Arthur and Arthur's mentor Conkling.

Garfield became more revered for standing up to Conkling and garnered sympathy after he was shot. Ackerman goes into detail about the doctors basically killing Garfield with their inept care, as they often stuck unwashed hands into the wound and didn't even know where the bullet was until they did a postmortem examination. Arthur, of course, was horrified that Guiteau shot the president because he wanted Arthur to succeed to the office. The mood in the country was ugly for months afterward, because most people resented Arthur and his boss, Conkling. When Garfield defied the New York senator, Conkling resigned his seat in protest. Back then, senators were appointed by the state legislatures, and Conkling just assumed he would be sent back in triumph. The legislature, however, sent a different man, breaking Conkling's power. Arthur distanced himself from Conkling and gained a measure of respect from the country at large. It didn't help him in 1884, and he wasn't nominated.

The book is riveting, not only for the story Ackerman tells, but the little facts he drops into the narrative about the way politics worked 120 years ago. We learn about the backroom deals, the patronage system that Guiteau inadvertently destroyed (Hayes had begun reforming the civil service, but Arthur took it further and created a meritocracy), and how conventions and elections worked. Ackerman gives us an interesting statistic: almost 80% of those eligible voted in the 1880 election (of course, women weren't eligible, but that's still an impressive number). He also writes extensively about the Republicans' relationship with black voters, as this was a time when the Republicans were the party of the black man and the Democrats were often connected to ex-Confederates. This is only four years after Reconstruction ended, after all, and the ex-Confederates were re-asserting their power in the South. It's interesting reading some of the statements the Republicans made about African-Americans, because many of the politicians said things that some of today's Republicans would find reprehensible and some of today's Democrats would agree with. It's a fascinating shift.

There's a ton to like about the book, and I encourage everyone in this political season to read it (or at least a political book!). I mean, a senator who resigns with Conkling got caught having sex with a prostitute in his hotel room, and other legislators lined up to take turns looking at him through the transom. That's pretty awesome. It gives us a glimpse into a relatively forgotten age of American politics, shows us that many powerful people in American politics were not president (in case you didn't already know that; Conkling and Blaine were very powerful kingmakers), sheds new light on a president who showed a great deal of potential in only a few months in office, and is surprisingly tense even though we know how it ends. It's easy and fun to read yet is amazingly complex. I blazed through it, and you can too!

What I've been reading

My computer is back, sort of (I didn't get it fixed, just took it to the shop for a diagnostic check, and when I got it back, it worked fine - so we'll see how long it lasts), so I figured I'd finish this post. Yes, it's about a book I read. I hope you didn't expect big fanfare for my return, now that I've lost the little readership I used to have!

Crusader Nation: The United States in Peace and the Great War, 1898-1920 by David Traxel. 413 pages, 2006, Alfred A. Knopf Books.

One would think, with my fondness for American History, 1865-1939, that this book would be right up my alley. And I did enjoy this book, but not as much as I thought I would. It's a strange book. It claims to go over the history of the United States from the Spanish-American War to the end of Wilson's presidency, but Traxel focuses so much on the First World War that the before and after gets a bit lost. By the end of the second chapter, Woodrow Wilson has been elected president, and we're only on page 38. What happened to Roosevelt's presidency? Similarly, the years 1919-1920 are handled in the epilogue. It's very weird.

In between, Traxel does a good job. He focuses on Wilson's presidency, obviously, and the idea that Americans in the early twentieth century became more and more interested in progressivism and social justice. Traxel subtly makes the case that the country has never been more liberal under Roosevelt (who was, after all, a Republican) and Wilson. Roosevelt believed in cleaning house, both in New York City and as president. Politics in the latter half of the eighteenth century were horribly corrupt, and Roosevelt wanted to change that. Wilson, interestingly enough, co-opted a lot of what Roosevelt wanted to do and took over the "progressive" movement from Roosevelt and his Progressive Party in 1912. It's amazing to realize how well Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate for president, did in the early years of the century. Today a Socialist can barely get on the ballot.

Traxel also does a nice job with socialism and progressivism on the ground, through the character of John Reed, the famous writer of Ten Days that Shook the World. Traxel follows Reed from his early assignment in Mexico, his dispatches from which made him a celebrity, to New York, to Provincetown, to Europe, back to New York, and finally to Russia. Reed stands in for all the socialists who wanted a revolution in the United States during the early years of the century. Reed is an interesting fellow (I own a copy of his masterpiece, but haven't read it yet), and Traxel gives us some nice insight into both his character and how the leftist celebrities of the early twentieth century lived - it turns out, not too differently from the leftist celebrities of the early twenty-first century, if the photograph of Louise Bryant naked on the beach in Provincetown is any indication! However, it's interesting to note how many of these writers and artist were fully prepared to go to jail for their beliefs, and how the government was very willing to accommodate them. Traxel, whether he wanted to or not (I suspect he did), does a good job showing how, despite the staggering ineptitude of the Bush Administration, it isn't as oppressive as some of the governments in the past, including Wilson supposedly "progressive" reign. Wilson was progressive enough, but some of those socialists didn't believe in God! The nerve!

The First World War and America's involvement in it form the major portion of the book. It's fascinating to read the agonizing the government went through before deciding to join the Allied cause, even though Germany had done several things to provoke us. Early on, Wilson wasn't even sure he would back the Allies, as there was a strong pro-German contingent in this country. Again, in marked contrast to our time, the preparations and debating over the war, plus the appeals to everyone to make sacrifices for the soldiers, are impressive and handled well. Of course, we also get the dark side of war - rampant patriotism (more jingoism than anything) that led to German-Americans losing businesses and being jailed simply for who they were. And, of course, the anti-war crowd, led by those damned socialists, could expect imprisonment too if they got too uppity. That's what makes these times so curiously like yet unlike our own - Bush couldn't do half the things Wilson did without a revolt, yet even with a great deal of criticism from even the mainstream press, Wilson was able to push through several unconstitutional laws. It's difficult reconciling the progressive policies of Wilson with those, until you realize that Wilson, like Roosevelt (even though TR would have denied this), believed in the power of the federal government to make things right. So on the one hand, Wilson was an advocate of women's suffrage and Prohibition, in the belief that women could think for themselves and alcohol was bad. On the other hand, he also believed the government knew what was best, so people criticizing the government were naturally wrong.

There's a lot to learn about our own time when reading a book like this. From the end of the Civil War to the present, many themes that we're still wrestling with are highlighted, and it's always interesting to see how previous generations dealt with it. Roosevelt and Wilson would be shocked by the power of corporations these days, as they actively worked to stop that, but they probably wouldn't be surprised that it had happened, because people today are far more wary about the government than they were 100 years ago. This era is a time when people believed the government could make things better. It's somewhat sad that we no longer believe that and that the government makes it so easy to believe it.

If you're still visiting the blog, thanks for bearing with me. I'll try to post regularly, but it's up to the PC until my new one arrives. For now, however, I'm back!

What I've been reading

Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford.
319 pages, 2005, Crown Publishers.
I love the Gilded Age. I find it terribly fascinating - the rise of "robber barons," the political scandals, the petty little wars we fought, the progressivism that came out of the reaction against scandal, and the way the United States slowly began to assert itself on the world stage after the Civil War. I love it. I also don't know a whole lot about it, because whenever I sashay through the American history section of the bookstore, I see dozens and dozens of books about the Civil War (when I was small I read Bruce Catton's book on the subject more than once, and that's all I need, damn it!), I see many books on Theodore Roosevelt (one of my favorite presidents, and the fact that Republicans today don't like him raises my esteem for him even more), but I see very few books about the era in between. What the crap?

So it was with glee that I picked this book up. Carnegie is a fascinating figure, and I knew very little about his business practices, his relationship with Frick, and how he tried to break the unions that operated in his plants. Standiford tells us early on that he is going to focus not exactly on Carnegie's and Frick's lives, but on their relationship and how their business practices led to the Homestead strike of 1892, a watershed event in the history of American labor. However, the book does a nice job of tracking the early years of Carnegie and Frick, losing its way only a slight bit in the section after the strike is over. We get into the personalities of both men, which helps us understand why the Homestead mess went as far as it did and turned so bloody. Frick was always disdainful of labor, and Carnegie, although he pretended to be a friend of the working man, was much more interested in keeping down costs. He was in Scotland when the strike hit, and he gave Frick carte blanche to deal with it. Frick responded by calling in scabs protected by Pinkertons, and things got messy.

The book is divided into three sections - the first leading up to the strike, the second about the strike, and then the denouement. We learn some interesting things about the two men - Carnegie was scornful of his fellow robber barons like Morgan and Rockefeller who pursued profit over all. He believed much more in keeping costs down, and hired people who shared that vision. He was one of the first people to pioneer the eight-hour shifts because one of his plant managers told him it would cost less for three eight-hour shifts than two twelve-hour ones. One of the reasons why the union representatives felt betrayed by Carnegie was because he reversed this policy. Carnegie was at the forefront of innovation in steel-making, too, because of this obsession with cost-cutting. He was also dedicated to creating a monopoly on steel-making for the same reason, which brought him into contact with Frick, who controlled the coke in western Pennsylvania. Both Carnegie and Frick were self-made men (to a degree) who were in the right place at the right time. Standiford goes into their business dealings in great deal, showing how they both became rich through steel. He also sets the stage nicely for their friendship and subsequent falling out.

The Homestead strike is covered in great detail, and this is where the book does a nice job. Homestead, Pennsylvania, was a complete company town, and when the union tried to negotiate a higher wage, Frick balked. When the workers went on strike, Frick kept in close contact with Carnegie, who basically told him to trust his instincts. So Frick played hard ball, brought in scabs, and tried to land them by boat inside the plant grounds, hoping to keep the strikers outside the fence. The strikers got inside and blocked the boat bringing the workers in. Frick had hired Pinkertons from the famous detective agency to defend the new workers and make sure they could get to work. Naturally, somebody fired a shot, and to this day no one knows who fired first. Four union workers died and a few of the Pinkertons, but no one could gain a clear advantage. Frick remained resolute, and the strike eventually fell apart. Standiford makes a mention to the slower news cycle of the times, which worked in management's advantage. He also goes into a bit of detail about the Haymarket Riot of 1886 and how American public opinion was slowly turning against labor at this time, which helped Frick as well. By the early 1900s, Carnegie's businesses were union-free, and would remain so until the late 1930s and the upswing in socialism.

The Homestead strike also put the first chinks in the friendship and partnership of Carnegie and Frick. Standiford tracks their falling-out, but he does so a bit perfunctorily, as if he lost interest in the subject after going into Homestead in such detail. It's still fascinating to read how petty it became, especially on Frick's side. He built a skyscraper in downtown Pittsburgh that dwarfed Carnegie's right next to it. He built a mansion in New York that made Carnegie's look small. He amassed a huge private art collection that is now housed in his mansion, which was converted into a museum. Both Frick and Carnegie, who were examples of American nouveau riche, believed in bettering themselves through the arts. Of course, Carnegie ended up giving away most of his fortune, and Standiford leaves us wondering if it was because of his strict religious upbringing or because of the guilt he felt over crushing labor. Carnegie himself probably didn't know.

Meet You in Hell is by no means a great book. It's an interesting read, but I can't tell you that you must run out and read it right now! If you're interested in this time period, it's a good book, and Standiford's prose is easy-going and loose, with an easily digestible style. I think the book could have been a bit longer, especially in the latter stages when Frick and Carnegie's friendship fell apart. Standiford does a nice job, however, in showing how Carnegie and Frick were at the forefront of the complete transformation of American society from an agricultural one to an industrial one. The sections dealing with Carnegie's business dealings and the Homestead strike itself are fascinating, and I enjoyed the book for the most part. It just let me down a bit at the end.