Chester Alan Arthur by Zachary Karabell (2004)

I like the Guilded Age for it's repressed sexuality and shifty politics. The political life of Chester Arthur was filled to the brim with shifty politics; as for repressed sexuality, we'll never know - the Athur papers were all burned at his death, leaving us with an unfinished portrait of who Arthur really was.


In a succession of likable yet forgettable presidents who pretty much did and said (0r didn't do and say) the same things, Arthur is mostly memorable as a guy who didn't want to vice president, who ended up becoming president because of an assassin's bullet. I liked the author's quote from Thomas Wolfe, which pretty much sums up Gilded Age presidents:"Their gravely vacant and bewhiskered faces mixed, melted, swam together in the sea-depth of a past, intangible, immeasurable, and unknowable... and they were lost. For who was Garfield, martyred man, and who had seen him in the streets of life? Who could believe that his footfalls ever sounded on a lonely pavement? Who had heard the casual familiar tones of Chester Arthur? And where was Harrison? Where was Hayes? Which had the whiskers, which the burnsides; which was which?" (this from a short story I found sort of dull). Amazingly, this was written in a time when people were alive who actually could remember the Arthur administration, yet was still considered lost... Arthur, by the way, had the burnsides.

I'm not sure what more can be said about this semi-milquetoast president. He presided over a time of peace and prosperity, without much to do. There weren't any wars, and Guiteau wasn't part of a bigger plot or intrigue; he was just mentally ill. Our enemies were few and far between. We still kept mostly to ourselves in the world. The Gild was coming off the Gilded Age, but just beginning.

There were parallels between then and now. A quote: "The Republican factions in Chicago were divided by personalities, not by beliefs, and the Democrats did not offer a dramatically different version." Sounds very, very familiar. Chester Arthur, rich, well dressed ,well connected, well lived, surrounded by similar types. The modern Republican party, sans Christians, would feel right at home. Obama = Cleveland (maybe; that will be my next book in the series) ?

Chet Arthur was incredibly well dressed, loved to eat good food, loved stylish comfort. Tiffany redecorated the White House during his administration, personally hired by the president himself. He "was the closest thing to Jacqueline Kennedy that Washington would see until Jacqueline Kennedy. He set trends for stylish living emulated by thousands who could afford it and envied by millions who could not." That quip was worth the whole book, and proof of Karabell's great writing skills. A book about a - let's face it - boring president was made incredibly interesting by good, good writing.




"For those who bemoan the growth of government in our day, the Pendleton Act" -- which created our modern civil service based on merit rather than patronage -- "might be seen as a step down the road to perdition. After all, it facilitated the vast expansion of the federal bureaucracy. Even those who don't like government, however, can probably appreicate that insofar as some government is a necessary evil, it's better for society that it be administered in a professional manner. Competenance is desirable as well, but corruption is not a recipe for a stable society." A gentle chide to libertarians to remember our history.


I think the last paragraphs deserve special note, and an example of Karabell's fine writing. "In everything he did, Chester Alan Arthur was a gentleman, and that is rare and precious. It reminds us that adversaries can be treated with respectt, that democracy can survive differences, and that leadership isn't just great words and deeds. Arthur manged to be a decent man and a decent president in an eara when decency was in short supply.

"For those who want presidents to be heroes, and, failing that, villains, for those who expect them to be larger-than-life figures, Arthur's tenure in office isn't satisfying. The nature of our expectations would have to change dramatically for Arthur to be reevaluated as one of this country's best presidents. And yet, in spite of what Shakespeare wrote, some men are neither born great, nor achieve greatness, nor have it thrust upon them. Some people just do the best they can in a difficult situation and sometimes that turns out just fine."