James A. Garfield: The Great President Who Never Was

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Script:

In 1881, James Garfield became the second US president to be assassinated. But while Abraham Lincoln died a martyr sixteen years earlier for union and liberty, Garfield was killed for a less glorious cause: civil service reform.

While that doesn’t seem like a big deal now, it was then. This was a time when most government positions were obtained through political connections.

This practice, known as “patronage” or the “spoils system,” was the way both Republicans and Democrats held power. It created a lot of party loyalty–you owed your job to the party–but also led to a lot of incompetence and corruption.

Garfield was the first president to seriously challenge this system–he took on the party bosses who doled out jobs and instead appointed qualified civil servants on the basis of merit.

This courageous act cost America’s twentieth president his life.

James Garfield was born on November 19, 1831 near Cleveland, Ohio.

His father died before James was two, leaving his strong-willed mother Eliza to raise him and his three siblings alone.

His mother and his older brother Thomas recognized that there was something special about James, and they made every possible sacrifice to get him an education.

James didn’t disappoint them. He was an excellent student with an exceptional work ethic. It wasn’t enough for him to merely master a subject. He had to be the best in his school. And, invariably, he was.

He put himself through college by studying during the day and working as a janitor by night. The same year he graduated–1856–he joined the new anti-slavery Republican Party. A