SEPTEMBER 20 = Arthur Becomes Third POTUS in One Year

Our political system may seem VERY odd... especially this
year with all off the unprecedented things going on with Donald Trump as President of the United States (POTUS). That statement
is intended neither as a criticism nor an endorsement of Mr. Trump.  But it has been an odd year. Well things were even stranger back in 1881. Because it was on this date, September 20, 1881 that Chester Alan Arthur (above)
a man who was hardly well known was inaugurated as POTUS. And he was the THIRD man to hold the office in that year.

Hayes to Garfield

The year 1881 began with Rutherford B. Hayes finishing his term.  Hayes had been elected under some very shady circumstances; it had come down to a tie back on election night in 1876 and several states were in dispute. Eventually the election was awarded to Hayes, who was thereafter called Rutherfraud B. Hayes in many quarters by bitter Democrats who felt that the election had been stolen from them.  Be that as it may, in an election that pitted the Ohio Republican James A. Garfield, a former Union General against another former Union general, Winfield Scott Hancock, Garfield managed to squeeze by Hancock by a mere 10,000 votes out of the nine million cast. Garfield had chosen as his running mate one Chester Alan Arthur a man who had held the lucrative and politically powerful post of Collector  of  the New York Customs House, which was where most of the nation's trade profits were collected. Mr. Arthur had been known as a man who did the bidding of the political bosses.  Thus he was a man with a checkered reputation to say the least.  Senator Roscoe Conklin, the Republican Party Boss had gotten Arthur on the ticket to do his bidding.

And Then Garfield's Gone...

   Nevertheless, he was sworn in along with James Garfield on March 4, 1881 as President and Vice President respectively.  Garfield began with his own set of priorities including making the American dream available to people who had come up through struggle and hard work as he had done --including black citizens.  He also intended to deal with Civil Service reform, and among other things, putting the Republican Party Boss Roscoe Conklin in his place. But there was another man, one Charles J. Guiteau, who considered himself an important part of  the victory was in fact nothing of the sort. He had written a speech supporting Garfield for president, and got it printed by the Republican National Committee but could find no important platform from which to deliver it. And when he did find a chance to deliver it, he couldn't finish it because he was so nervous. But

still Guiteau thought that he deserved some important position as a result of his "part" in Garfield's victory. In fact, he felt that he should be made the U.S. Consul in Paris.  Never mind that he spoke nary a word of French, nor any other  language than English. Garfield like any POTUS had tons of mediocre men wanting federal appointments and he met with Guiteau.  But seeing Guiteau as just another office seeker (which he was), he turned him down. Guiteau was furious and mentally unbalanced. So he got a gun and on July 2, shot President Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. (above). Guiteau tried to leave the station, but was apprehended a few minutes later.

Garfield Dies Slowly, and Then It's Arthur

   Garfield's death proved to  be a slow and painful one. This was mainly because the doctors did not  know how to treat the  wound. One bullet
grazed his arm, but the  other hit him in the back, shattering a rib and was lodged in his abdomen.  But the doctors just didn't know how to get at the bullet. Further his physician, Dr. Willard Bliss (below) did

not believe in what was then the new idea of germs, so he would not clean the wound. And the wound was slowly becoming more infected and poisoning the President's blood. Although he seemed to rally a couple of times over the more than two and a half months of his confinement to a hospital bed, he never left that bed. He had spent all of his time since being wounded at the White House, but during his last few days he asked taken to Franklyn Cottage his little home on the new Jersey coast of the Atlantic ocean just to get away from Washington. His trip there in a special train was observed by shocked citizens who stood in reverent silence, throwing hay on the tracks to lighten any bumps. And it was there that he died on today's date in 1881.

Thus Arthur became the third president to take office in 1881. At the start of his administration, Arthur had a tough time with his past as an old party hack from the New York Republican machine. But this Arthur was a different man than the old party hack he had once been. He actually summoned up the courage to face Boss Conklin down and pushed him aside. He wound up doing a good job in civil service reform. He sponsored and enforced the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Guiteau was found guilty of  Garfield's murder and was executed on June 3, 1882.

Actually, this came forty years after a previous year of three Presidents.  In 1841, Martin Van Buren's term came to an end in March, and he was succeeded by William Henry Harrison. President Harrison
developed pneumonia, and died after a mere month in office (the shortest presidential term in history), and his Vice President, John Tyler became the third POTUS in that year.



Sources:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/chester-arthur-becomes-third-president-to-serve-in-one-year

"Presidential Campaigns" by Paul F. Boller Jr., Oxford University Press, New York, 1984.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_A._Arthur