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From the July 2023 issue of The Garfield Telegraph, the newsletter of James A. Garfield National Historic Site.
Charles Guiteau shoots President James A. Garfield in the back, July 2, 1881. Drawing by W.A. Rogers for Harper's Weekly.
On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield in the back. Garfield died 80 days later, having served only 6½ months as president.
Why didn't the Secret Service stop it?
Because protecting the president was not its job. The Secret Service was founded on July 5, 1865, as part of the Department of the Treasury, to protect the economy from counterfeiting.
Before then, and for a long time after, presidents mostly had no protection at all, though at times they relied on army personnel. The presidency was seen as the people's office, one the public should always be able to reach, and presidents often walked through crowds unaccompanied. Protecting the president did not become a priority until the third assassination of a president.
| Year | Change |
|---|---|
| 1902 | A year after President William McKinley's assassination, the Secret Service begins protecting the president, with two full-time agents |
| 1917 | Protection extends to the president's immediate family |
| 1951 | After the attempt on President Harry S. Truman, the Secret Service becomes the president's permanent protector |
| 1965 | Attempting to assassinate the president becomes a federal crime, and former presidents and their families gain lifetime protection |
| 1968 | After Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, protection extends to presidential candidates |
"My God, what is this?"
At about 9:30 on the morning of Saturday, July 2, 1881, Garfield was walking to the train platform of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., with his Secretary of State, James Gillespie Blaine. He had no bodyguard of any kind. He was bound for Elberon, New Jersey, to meet his wife, Lucretia, who was recovering from a near-fatal bout of malaria caught in May, for a vacation of several weeks.
When Guiteau fired, the president is said to have cried out, "My God, what is this?" and collapsed. Within moments his sons Harry, 17, and Jim, 15, were there. Jim wrote in his diary that day: "I was frightened & I could do nothing but cry. Hal was very brave & helped. He [Papa] was very dangerously wounded…"
James R. Garfield's diary entry for July 2, 1881. Library of Congress.
Carried back to the White House, the president lingered between life and death for the next two and a half months.
A grandmother's verdict on cards
Eliza Ballou Garfield, the president's mother, disapproved of card playing to the end of her life. Her grandchildren remembered an evening late in her life when she appeared in the doorway of a room where her grandson Hal was playing cribbage with his fiancée, Belle. "I have heard of female gamblers," she said, "but I have never seen one before." Then she went off to bed, well pleased to have spoken her mind.
Sources
- National Park Service, James A. Garfield National Historic Site, "Garfield Telegraph July 2023": https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/garfield-telegraph-july-2023.htm
- The newsletter's July 2023 event listings are not reproduced.
Лицензия: CC0 1.0 (общественное достояние) · По материалам www.nps.gov
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