and nobody really knew what to do or how accountability was going to take place and people who were using public resources defining the public good and working on behalf of the public who were not actually public officials they were volunteers, they were heads of the nonprofit organization but they were using public funds, and the public didn't necessarily have any oversight and today they may have some of these measures indicators and reporting systems that are a bit onerous for a lot of folks, but it does provide oversight. >> thank you so much for your time. ..

>> they are tackling the assassination of president james a. garfield. this is her third trip to the search between research and other things she's done, and it's a great pleasure to welcome her. make her feel welcomed, candice millard. [applause] >> thank you, thank you for that introduction, todd, and thank you, all, for coming. it is a real pleasure to be here, and it is a great honor to speak at the james a. garfield national historic site, and i also wanted to say a particular

thank you to the garfield family as well, which has been incredibly kind and generous and helpful to me throughout the whole process so thank you so much. at heart, this book is not about politics or science or even the shooting of a president. it's about an extraordinary drama that took place inside the white house of over more than two months. in the 130 years since garfield's death, his story has been largely forgotten, but even at the time, even though the entire nation, the entire world was watching, no one really understood what was happening. what began as a shooting became an incredible struggle for power and ambition. the result was the brutal death

of one of our most promising leaders at the hands of his own physicians. this is an intimate heart breaking story of in-- ignorance versus science, greed versus heroism. james garfield was not, as he's often remembered to be, just a bland bearded 19th century politician. on the con -- contrary. that's the wrong picture. i don't know what went up, but on the contrary, he was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. although he was born into desperate poverty, he became a professor of literature, mathematics, and ancient languages when he was just a sophomore in college. by the time he was 26 years old, he was the college president.

he knew the entire area by heart in latin while he was in congress, he wrote an original proof of the paing that rei up theorem. to me what's more inspirational and more astonishing even than his brilliance was his decency. you know, i wrote a week about theodore roosevelt, and i have great admiration, but that's not garfield. he was the calmest, wisest man in the room. he was a good, kind, honest man who was just trying his best. he was a real person, not consumed by ego an ambition, someone who was just simply trying to do the right thing. even after 17 years in congress

and one of the most ruthless, vicious eras of machine politics, garfield never changed. his friends used to marvel at his patience and forebearance, but he was incapable of holding a grudge. he used to say, "i'm a poor hater." although he took his presidency very seriously, he had never had what he called presidential fever. in fact, he never really ran for any office. people asked him to run, and he never did, but he'd never even campaign. he always made it clear that he was going to follow his own conscious and convictions, and if people didn't agree with them, they shouldn't vote for him. when garfield went to the republican convention in the summer of 1880, not only was he

not a candidate; he didn't even want to be one. he had gone there to give a speech, and he was kicking himself because he was not prepared. he wrote a letter home telling his wife that he was just sick about the fact he had not written the speech before the convention, and now he wouldn't have time. the convention was an enormous hall in chicago. there were 15,000 people there, and the favorite to win, by far, was ulyssis s. grant who was withdrawning for a fifth term in office. in the midst of this, garfield got up to speak, and his speech was to powerful and elegant and largely extemporaneous that the hall fell silent until all you could hear was garfield's

voice. they were all riveted and spell bound. at one point he said, "and so, gentlemen, i ask you, what do we want?" one man yelled out, we want garfield. the hall went crazy. people cast their ballots for garfield even that he was not a candidate. he stood up and objected, and the votes kept coming, and he couldn't stop what was happening. what was a trickle became a stream became a river and finally a flood of votes, and before garfield knew it, he was the republican nominee for president of the united states. what i found again and again and again while i was researching this book was that not only was garfield's life and nomination and brief presidency full of incredible stories, but the

people who surrounded him were also unbelievable. you just couldn't make them up. first is charles buteau, his would-be asass sin. he was a deeply delusional man who was highly intelligent and articulate. if you read nearly any other account of his assassination, he's described as a disgruntled office seeker, but that doesn't cover the smallest part of it. he was a uniquely american character. he was the product of this country at that time, a time when there was a lot of play in the joints, and there was no one to really understand what he was up to, and holds him to account for it. he was a self-made madman. he was smart and scrappy. he was a clever opportunist, and

he probably would have been very successful if he had not been insane. [laughter] he had tried everything, and he had failed at everything. he had tried law, evangelism, even a free love commune in the 1800s, and he had failed even at that. the women in the commune nicknamed him charles get out. [laughter] he survived on sheer audacity. he traveled all over the country by train and never bought a ticket. he took great pride in moving from border house to boarding house, slipping out when the rent was due, and even when he occasionally worked as a bill collector, he would just keep whatever he managed to collect. after the republican convention, he became obsessed with garfield and immediately after the election, he began to stalk the president. he went to the white house nearly every day. at one point, he even walked

into the president's office while the president was in it. he even attended a reception and introduced himself to garfield's wife. he shook her hand, he gave her his card, and he slowly pronounced his name so she wouldn't forget him. it's like a hitchcock movie that's incredibly creepy and absolutely terrifying. finally, he had what he believed was a devine inspiration. god wanted him to kill the president. there's nothing personal, he'd later say, simply god's will. as strange and fascinating and nearly as dangerous as buteau was senator roscoe conkling. conkling was a vain, preening, brutally powerful politician who

appointed himself garfield's enemy. he wore -- there's conkling. he wore canary yellow waistcoats, used purple ink, had a curl at his forehead and recoiled at the slightest touch. he was ridiculed by it for another congressman on the floor of congress, but conkling was no joke. he was dangerly powerful. as a senior senator from new york, he controlled the customs house, the largest federal office in the united states controlling 70% of the country's customs revenue. conkling tightly controlled patronage within his state, and he wanted complete and unquestioning loyalty. in fact, his participant in new york -- apartment in new york was known as the morgue. he was enraged when grant didn't

get the nomination, but he was really mad when he realized he couldn't control garfield. to conkling, the attempt on garfield's life was his ticket back in power, but for the first time in conkling's life, nothing turned out as he planned. chester author was garfield's vice president, but he was conkling's man. politically, he was completely conkling's creation. in fact, the only other political office he'd ever held was as the collector of the new york customs house, a position that conkling, through president grant, had begin to him. in that position, he made as much money as the president, and he never showed up for work before noon. author preferred a life of leisure. he liked fine clothes, old wine, late dinner parties, and he was nearly as preening as conkling. in fact, he moved his birth date

back a year to appear more youthful. [laughter] even within the republican party, author's nomination was considered ridiculous. after the election, author continued to make it clear where the loyalties laid. he went on vacations with conkling, lived with him for a time, and took every opportunity to publicly criticize the president, and then suddenly, everything changed. after garfield was shot, author made a transformation so stunning and complete that no one would believe it. the entire country was horrified by the thought that chester author might be president. unlike conkling, author was sickened and grief stricken by the shooting. the last thing he wanted was for garfield to die. he hid himself from public

view. he refused even to go to washington for fear that it would look like he was waiting in the wings, and he cut himself off from conkling. finally, after turning his back on the man who had made him, author found moral strength in the most up likely of places. the letters of a young invalid woman named julia canaled. she believed in him when he didn't believe in himself. she wrote to author, if there's a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. faith in your better nature forces me to write to you, but not to ask you to resign. do what is more difficult and more brave, reform. to everyone's amazement, not least of all authors, he did. he changed dramatically, and he tried to be the president garfield would have been had he

lived. he became an honest and respected leader, and he never forgot julia sands. not only did he keep her letters, but wrote her back, and he even went to visit her. one day after sunday dinner, sand was at her brother's house, and a highly polished # carriage pulled up in front of the house, and to sands astonishment, president author stepped out. he had come to thank her in person for her help. the reason author became president was not the madness or even conk ling's political maneuverings, but the ambition, ignorance, and dangerous arrogance of the man who assumed control of garfield's medical care, dr. doctor will lard bliss. that's right, his first name was

doctor. his parented named him doctor. [laughter] he was a doctor at abraham lincoln's bedside. he had far from a sterling reputation. he sold something that was supposed to cure cancer, syphilis, ulcers, chronic blood diseases, you name it. he was disgraced for taking bribes, and he had spent a small amount of time in prison. when roberted to longes, garfield's secretary of war, sent for bliss after the shooting, bliss saw in this national tragedy a once in a lifetime opportunity for fame and power. he immediately took charge of the president's medical care even though no one gave him the authority. he just took it. he dismissed the other doctors, and he completely isolated garfield in a sick room in the white house. he wouldn't even let him see his

secretary of state. what happened in that room, inside the white house, is nothing short of horrifying. bliss and the few surgeons he hand picked to help him inserted unsterilized fingers and instruments in garfield's back again and again, day after day, searching for the bullet. the last thing bliss wanted was for garfield to die. he had too much at stake, but his own arrogance and ignorance were slowly and excruciatingly killing the president. the only hope for garfield was to find the bullet and end the search, but this was 14 years before the invention of the medical x-ray. what happened next is nothing short of incredible, only the most brazen novellest would make it up. none other than alexander grahm

bell stepped forward to help. bell, a young restless genius invented the telephone five years earlier when he was only 29 years old. by 1881, the tornado telephone earned him some money and a lot of fame, but he wanted nothing to do with the company that grew up around it. he said it was hateful to him at all times and stuttered him as an inventer. worse than the business were the lawsuits against the telephone. there were 600 lawsuits against it. five of which went to the united states supreme court. finally, bell had had enough. he said he was sick of the telephone, and he quit the bell telephone company. bell just wanted to help people. he had lost both of his brothers to tuberculosis before he was 24 years old. both his wife and mother were deaf, and he knew that he could make life better for people, maybe even save lives, but he

worked so hard that his parents and his wife were terrified that he would literally work himself to death. when he was working, he wouldn't stop to eat or rest. his only respite was to play the piano deep into the night, but even then, he played with such intensity that his mother, who taught him to play, called it a musical fever. when garfield was shot, bell turned his life upside down to help him, and it sickened him to think of garfield's doctors blindly searching for the bullet. science, he thought, should be able to do better that that. bell abandoned everything he was doing and spent day and night inventing the induction balance, basically a metal detector hooked up to a tfn receiver, and in which he slowly ran over the president's body listening for a

buzzing to tell him where the bullet was lodged. in the end, bell and science were defeated, but not because the invention didn't work. it did work. in fact, it went on to save countless lives before the invention of the medical x-ray. alexander grahm bell was defeated by ignorance and ambition of the president's own doctors. as i began my research for this book, the question that kept coming to me was how could this have happened? what i found was, first of all, the presidency in 1881 was very different from the presidency today. first of all, secret service. this is 16 years after the assassination of abraham lincoln, and there's still no secret service protection for the presidency. garfield had only his 24-year-old private secretary and an aging policeman.

not only was the president not protected from the public, but he was expected to interact with them one on one, face to face, on a daily basis. you have to remember that this is the height of the spoil system, and many americans believe that they were entitled to government jobs, even if they had no training or credentials for them. more than that, they insisted on making their case directly to the president himself. garfield was forced to meet with office seekers from 10:35 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. every day, and the situation made him desperate. he longed for time to work and think, and he wondered why anyone would ever want to be president, but while he found office seekers tiresome, even maddening, he never considered them to be dangerous. he said that assassination can no more be guarded against than

death by lightning, and it's best not to worry about either. he walked around the city by himself all the time. in fact, one night, he left the white house, he walked down the street to his secretary of state's house. they walked alone to the through the streets of washington with buteau following them the entire way holding a loaded gun. in fact, by that time, he had been stalking the president for weeks. he had even followed him to church, and i considered shooting him in church. finally, he made his decision. the president he knew would be at the baltimore train station in washington, d.c. on the morning of july 2, 1881, and he would be waiting. the moment garfield walked into the state that morning, he stepped out of the shadows and shot him twice. the first bullet hit the

president in the arm, a second went through his back. by an incredible stroke of luck, however, he didn't kill garfield, just wounded him. the bullet that tore through his back didn't hit his spinal cord or vital organs. today, he would have spent a few nights in the hospital. even if he was just left alone, he almost certainly would have survived, but unfortunately for garfield and the nation, dr. bliss stepped in. bliss took advantage of the fear and the chaos that followed the shooting to assume control of garfield's medical care, but he was not only ambitious and air -- arrogant. he adhered to the most traditional medical efforts of the time. bliss gave garfield, a gunshot victim, rich foods and alcohol. he took great satisfaction in what he called the healthy pussishing from the president's

infected wound, and avoided any treatment he considered to be new and radical, including antiseptics. the renowned british surgeon, joseph blister, discovered antiseptics by destroying germs 16 years earlier. the death rate in his ward plummeted, and he traveled all around begging doctors to sterilize hands and instruments and warning them if they didn't, they ran the real risk of killing their patients. by 1881, this was widely accepted in europe, but the most experienced and respected doctors in the united states still dismissed it as useless, even dangerous. some still didn't even really believe in germs. they laughingly referred to them as invisible germs, and they certainly didn't want to go through all the trouble that that required to kill them.

they took great pride in what they call the good old surgical stink. they would not change or wash their surgical aprons because they believed the more blood and puss encrusted on them, the more experience it showed. even those who tried this had little success for reasons that today seem painfully clear. they would sterilize their knives, but if they dropped him during surgery, they just picked them up and continued using them. if they needed both hands during surgeon general, they held the knife if their teeth and then use it. even alexander grahm bell could not beat the infection racing through garfield's body. the story, however, doesn't end there. his death brought about tremendous changes. changes in medicine, politics, in the fabric of our nation. as soon as garfield's autopsy

was released, the american people understood that the president didn't have to die, and they understood why he did. bliss was publicly disgraced, and antiaccept sis was adopted across the country. americans turned their rage and grief on the political system that had encouraged a madman. chester author, himself, who owed his entire career to patronage signed the act which was the beginning of the end of the spoil system. his death brought the country together in a way that had not been seen since the civil war. lincoln's assassination only deepened that divide, but garfield was the first president accepted by the south since the civil war. he was accepted north and south, imgrant and pioneer. free man, and former slave ordinary person, that was his

loss and common grief brought them together. above all, garfield's death changed the presidency himself. you could argue that this really marked the end of the ideal -- idealistic or naive view of the president meeting with people on his own. it was an unworkable system for reasons. it was open to corruption, completely inefficient, and it was personally dangerous. it never would have worked as the united states grew into a major world power, and it's good that it's gone. at the same time, these changes also make it almost impossible to ever again elect someone like garfield. the presidency today is not about a single person, but about a large complex institution.

the president may be our greatest political celebrity, but his personal powers bounded by and filtered through many layers. he's surrounded by elaborate security, his contact with the public is carefully controlled, and he operates in a bubble of secret service officers, high officials, and the press. it is very unlikely that what happened to garfield could happen today, but by the same token, even if we could find someone like garfield, we couldn't elect him. the presidency is too big and too distant for americans to be able to choose someone who isn't even trying to be elected. it seems to be open only to people who are willing to sacrifice almost anything to become president. we have hopefully outgrown the day when a madman can just walk into the oval office, and an incompetent doctor could seize control of the white house for

nearly three months murdering the president in the process. we likely have also outgrown the day when americans can recognize the promise of a fine, honest man, a 3457b -- a man with no financial support, no political machine, nothing but the strength of his own words and ideas and in the shining moment of democracy, make him our leader. thank you. [applause] [applause] happy to take questions. >> if you ask a question, approach the microphone here, and speak into the microphone, please. thank you. >> great presentation.

>> thank you very much. >> were there any among garfield's family, friends, or survived board nants -- subordinants who championed bell's help? >> he had quit the telephone company, and he had opened a small laboratory in dc, and as soon as the president was shot, he knew that he could help him, and he offered his help to bliss. by that time, although bliss' public face was that everything is going great, the president's doing well, he became desperate, and he accepted bell's help. interestingly, although, as i said, really the -- the most respected, most experienced doctors in the united states dismissed methods, there were young doctors studying his

methods in europe, and who watched this with growing horror, but didn't feel that they could stand up to the well-known doctors. there was, i would probably say -- i am, by the way, born and raised in ohio, but i'm living in kansas now, and there was a doctor from kansas who wrote about garfield's wife and said don't let them probe the wound, but sterilize anything, but that never got through to bliss, who ran things exactly as he wished. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, i don't mean to get you off the track, but i'm thinking that garfield played a very significant role in the 1876 election in the commission that actually elected the president, and if i'm right about that, can you tell me a little bit about that? >> that was a controversial election in which hayes was given the presidency. i'm not sure, to be honest, how much of a role garfield played in that, but that was

interesting in that everyone was very, very closely watching the election of 1880 because of this, and also because it was such a stunning nomination for garfield at the republican convention, so this election was closely watched. really, by everyone except for garfield, who was very happily here with his family, you know, doing experiments with soil and was thrilled that he wasn't asked to campaign, which was considered unseenly at that time. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> i find it very fascinating three of our great presidents, lincoln, garfield, and -- [inaudible] they were all assassinated, and the calendar this year is the same of 1881, and on a date this thursday, and tomorrow that garfield's body lay in the nation's capitol, and i just thank you for coming here on this day, to our hometown, thank you. >> my honor, thank you. [applause]

thank you. >> hi. >> hi. >> what do you think about the fact that garfield quit being a general while the civil war was still raging to go back into politics? what's your response about garfield, the politician? >> he didn't want to. lincoln asked him to come back. he needed him back in congress fighting the fight that lincoln had, and garfield understood that. you know, it was difficult for him, you know? he loved his regimen, which was many of whom made up from boys from the western reserve institute, so it was a difficult decision for him, and he felt very passionately about the civil war, not only in keeping the country together, but in bringing about abolition. he was just a fierce abolitionist, and he was a national hero because of his work in the civil war. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much for an excellent presentation.

>> thank you. >> towards the end of your presentation, you said in the very last paragraph that doctor bliss was murdering the president. you don't impiewduate mall las to him at all, but utter incompetence. >> exactly. >> i'm curious to know how you got interested in a subject like this. >> okay. i'll dress the bliss thing. you're absolutely right. the last thing bliss wanted is for garfield to die. in fact, he wrote a letter to a friend on white house stationery saying i can't afford to have him day. he worked night and day, lost his health and practice. he was incredibly arrogant dismissing all the other doctors, and he was willfully ignorant. he knew about sterilization, and so, you know, you have to judge him on that as well. your other question was how i got into the subject?

>> your interest in the subject. >> to be honest, even though i grew up in ohio, i didn't know much beyond the fact he was assassinated, and i was not interested in writing about another president, but i was interested in science, and i was researching alexander gram belle, and i stumbled on the sorry of bell trying to save garfield after he was shot. i was stunned. i never heard the story, and i couldn't understand why bell, who really was at the height of his fame and his power, would turn his life upside down to do this. i mean, he had a family in boston. his wife and his children, his wife was pregnant, and they had been planning ongoing to maine because it was incredibly hot, and he had just left them and spent all of his time, night and day, working on this, and so it made me wonder why would he do that? what was garfield like? when i started to research

garfield, i was just completely captivated, and i knew i had to tell this story. >> hi. >> hi. >> good to see you. >> good to see you. >> i want to follow that same theme. ii know you are from a small town in ohio and are a product of public education. how did you become inspired to become a writer? >> great question. you know, i didn't ever think i would be a writerment you know, i was a reader. i was a reader, loved to read, and i thought i would probably teach, and i got an undergraduate master's degree in literature and thought i was going to get my ph.d., but to be honest, i hated literary criticism. i realized i reallimented to write -- really wanted to write, so it was a process. it was not overnight. it was little by little. i had got the masters at baylor, and i moved home, moved in with my parents, called every

publisher in town looking for a job, and just had all of these little magazine jobs. you know, i worked for a magazine for verett theirians and never even had a pet. [laughter] you know? knew nothing, just figured it out, and timely got my dream job when i was 28 years old working at national gee grafng, and i was a researcher the first year, but they had this terrific blind test for a writing position on the magazine, and i applied along with 300 other people, and i got the job, and it was the best thing that happened to me up to that point, and i did that for six years until i got the idea for my first book, so it's been a journey, but it's been wonderful. >> hi. when the doctor was working on garfield, why didn't mrs. garfield tell the doctors to stop working on garfield? >> what a wonderful question.

you know, it was a time of chaos and confusion and fear, and bliss came forward very confidently, and, in fact, he wrote a letter to the other doctors saying the president and i thank you for your help and concern, but your efforts won't be necessary any longer even though garfield or his wife had never begin him that authority. to his wife, you know, even though most doctors knew about sterilization, his wife didn't, and she didn't understand what was happening, but she did keep on her doctors. she had a female doctor, which was very rare at that time, whom they called mrs. dr. edson because they were so uncomfortable with a woman doctor, but dr. edson refused to go away when bliss dismissed the other doctors to bliss' great annoyance and said, all right, you can say, but not as a doctor, only as a nurse, but she stayed, and she did what she could.

yes? >> what town are you from, and can i find the book in the library by now? >> that's a great question. thank you. i am originally born in marion, ohio, and i grew up in lexington, ohio, close to mansfield, and i think that the book probably is in the libraries by now, so, yeah, thank you for asking. i hope you read it. >> what's it like to be an author, and if you're going to write a next book, what's it going to be about? >> it's really, really fun to be an author. i would recommend highly. it's the best part for me is doing the research because you get to do incredible things. when i wrote my first book, "river of doubt" it's about an unmapped river in the amazon that roosevelt went down. i got to go down the river, it's remote, hired a pilot and a

small plane and flew over jungle, and i met this isolated group of tribesmen who their grandparents and great grandparents had had an attack, and they remembered it, and they remembered all of the stories. you get these up credible -- incredible experiences. researching this book was, you know, it was interesting, the difference between -- researching the river of doubt was difficult logistically planning the trip. this was difficult emotionally because i became very attached to garfield. i really caredded about him, and it was difficult to see what was happening. like, i kept wanting to just yell over the span of 130 years, stop! you know, somebody stop these men. [laughter] reading his wife's diary, his children's diaries, you know, seeing there's a section of garfield's spine in the national museum of health and medicine used during the trial. there's also the remains of

charles in a drawer with the remains of john wilkesbooth. there's a jar of pieces of charl's brain sent around the country after he was executed to see if you can see physical evidence of insanity. it's a very interesting job, and it's a real privilege to be able to do this. yes, i am working on a next book. i can't get into the details about it because it's really early, but it's going to be about winston churchill. thank you for your questions. >> i remember hearing about the story of alexander grahm bell and what was he was doing, and i heard the thing he did for the president actually did work, but it went off all the time, seemed like the bullet was all over the place, but they didn't realized it worked because it picked up the metal bed springs underneat

the president, and that's why hi had a hard time finding the bullet. is there truth to that? >> that's one the reasons. isn't it astonishing? he asked him if the president -- it was new and rare thing at that time to have a mattress with metal springs in it, and they said, no, and, in fact, he was on a bed of metal springs. obviously, that's going to affect a metal detector. the other reason it didn't find the bullet is that bliss believed and had publicly stated that the bullet was on the president's right side, and he would only let bell run the undings balance over the president's right side, and the bull ease was on the -- bullet was on the left. >> wow. i was also curious about the old cliche, ignorance is bliss -- is that where it comes from? [laughter] >> i have that in the book, actually. that's very perceptive of you. one, in fact, so after the

autopsy results and bliss' disgraced in newspapers and medical journals, everybody understands, and one of the doctors says this proves ignorance is bliss, but it comes from a poem from the 1700s. >> oh, okay. >> yeah. it's unfortunate. [laughter] hi. >> did you write any fiction books? >> no, i haven't written fiction. you know, fiction and non-fiction writing is very different, and i read a lot of fiction, and i love it, and i've gone to a lot of talks by fiction writers, and i always marvel at myself because they say, well, what's your process like? they say, well, you know, i sort of let the story lead me, and i kind of follow my characters. to me, that's a nightmare. [laughter] i know exactly -- my process is i spend three years writing a

book, and the fourth year is foundational research, and the entire second year i go through research and outlining it. always outline. it's important. it helps, and it saves you a lot of pain, believe me, and i just work on structure for an entire year, and only then do i start writing, and throughout there, i find holes in my research, and guy back and do -- and i go back and do more. i love it. >> that's what my teacher said. [laughter] >> listen to her, she's right, she's right! you can't skip the outlines, sorry. [laughter] >> i'd like to know what's the term "political machine" men? >> well, so this is the time of machine politics. it's incredibly corrupt and power mungerring, and roscoe conkling was the pinnacle example of that kind of corruption. i'm sure you heard of boss

tweed, so that really -- and the guilded age, that's all from mark twain, and that's where that comes from. it's a time of rampant corruption, and -- >> bullying? >> bullying and the spoil system, and, you know, things obviously are not perfect now, but if you compare them to that time, we're a lot belter off. >> when you do your research, when you're coming -- able to use like the diaries and letters like that, how do you obtain that? is that through, you know, out there for the public, or do you have to get permission from the family or wherever the documents are? >> a lot of garfield's paper are and the presidential papers are at the library of congress. anybody can see them. you just need a driver's license, get a reader id card, and i will say they are very, very strict with their rules which they obviously should be. i mean, these are national treasures, but for instance, i'll give you a story here. i, you know, i'm a good person,

and i very carefully follow the rules, but you just allowed to have one card at a time with five bins at a time, only one bin on your desk at a time, and one folder out of that bin, so i'm following all the rules, and i open a folder, and there's an envelope in the folder. it's not sealed, and the face of it is facing the table, and so i open it up, and out spills out of this hair, and i turn it, and it says clipped from president garfield on his death bed. i was like, oh, my god. i quick try to get it back, oh, my career is over, they are going to kick me out and i'll never be able to -- you never know what you're going to find, but it's an adventure. [laughter] thanks. >> thank you. >> hi, you mentioned her letters and diaries. are those published? >> they are. her -- garfield kept a diary for

years, and her diary is at the back of the last volume of garfield's diary published, and then, yes, there's a wonderful volume of letters between her and james. you know, they were -- they only spent five months together during the first five years of their marriage because he was either gone fighting in the war, or in washington in congress, and she was here in ohio, and so, you know, to her credit, she kept all of those letters. you know, at the end of his life, garfield questioned if he would have much of a legacy because he had been president for such a brief time, but she understood who he was, and he understood that he would, and even though, you know, many of those letters are very painful because their early marriage was very difficult. she kept all of them, and they are beautiful. she, you know, i mean, as brilliant as he was, she was his equal intellectually, and i would highly recommend this book

on their letters. >> thanks. >> i thank you for a very enjoyable evening. >> thank you so much. >> i have one question. wondering -- you talkedded about james garfield being a multifaceted, multitalented man. how do you rank him with the others like jefferson? >> to me, personally, and i'm biased, i think had he lived, i believe that he would have been one of our great presidents. i mean, it's impossible to know because he was in office for such a short time. you know, i'm a great admirer of jefferson, a great admirer of lincoln, but i think that honestly, i think garfield had a mind like jefferson's and a heart like lincoln's. >> i agree. thank you. >> thank you. >> i was wondering is there like -- is it hard to find the research on him? >> you know, it is like being a

detective, kind of, and so it's really fun in that way, so you just search and surnlg -- search and search and search. i cast a wide net. i went everywhere and every place. look in the obvious places, like i came here several times, i went to the college where he was a student, and teacher and president, and i went to the library of congress, but i found the new york bar, the library of the new york bar has letters of guiteau and there's just bits and pieces here and there, and it's like a treasure hunt. it's a lot of fun. any other questions? yes? >> i just have one question to add to the thing about dr. bliss. was there any government action taken against him or

prosecuted? did they investigate his ineptness? >> they didn't. you know, and he, i think the country was heart broken and enraged and focusing on charles and his trial because, you know, he tried -- he had an insanity defense, and the country was terrified he'd get off and sent to an asylum rather than being hanged. also, bliss never admitted he had done anything wrong. he, in fact, insisted that he had given the very best medical care to the president. in fact, he handed congress a very extensive bill for his work and was outraged when congress refused to pay. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you. >> i have a several small questions. first of all, have you talked to the group out of ohio college about this? >> i did research there, but have not spoken with any groups there. did a lot of research in their

library. >> do you think this would make a good book for a movie? [laughter] >> yes! [laughter] no -- [applause] >> well, i think it would make an complement book for a movie. i can hardly wait to see it come out. [laughter] my father was an ordained minister in the same church that garfield was -- >> really? >> and he, i heard somebody said he road a horse from here over to the -- rode a horse over to the franklin church, a disciples of christ church. do you know if that's true? i don't know -- >> i don't know the story, but i'd love to hear it. >> that's what i heard, anyway. thank you for the talk. >> thank you so much. thank you, everyone. thank you so much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> can u make a comment? >> oh, hold on, go ahead, bob. >> as the unelected -- [laughter] the senior member -- [laughter] in this part of the country, as a matter of fact, i trade some of those years, but that's not going to work. [laughter] no, i want to thank you for an absolutely extraordinary undertaking that you took on and achieved so mightily, and you humanized someone who was a ghost in the past to many people who didn't even know the ghost was there. there have been things written about him and about the family in the past, but nothing begins to compare with what you've done here, so thank you very much. >> thank you so much. [applause] >> this event was hosted by the

james a. garfield national historic site. for more information visit np s.gov/jaga. >> and the court issue to pan out a little bit is how do you get young people into the work force. how do you move students from sike -- psychology 101 classes to the office jbs where they -- jobs where they will be in the service economy. what's the best way to do that, the most humane way to do that, and what's the way that ensures the sort of highest level of social justice as possible in terms of making that inequitable process, and i essentially find this current, very haphazard unregulated free-for-all system

that's grown up to be inadequate, so sort of fail our tests of what would be a rational humane and even efficient way of getting people from point a to point b, just to kind of see it on a very macrolevel. anyway, potted history, so internships originate, the term "intern" originally from french, probably for several hundred years used in french hospitals as a term for junior doctors, kind of apprenticing doctors, and comes to the states probably sometime in the mid 19th century. the word itself, at that time still spelled intern with an e on the end with a french mode, and it essentially means a young doctor who is interned within the four walls of a hospital for a year or so usually, a couple

of years, performing junior sort of tasks, you know, blood letting and applying leeches stitch at that point, whatever it was, some grizzly things, probably overworked, possibly with resemblance to today's interns, but in any case, working within a hospital before they get to become a full on medical practitioner. i think this is -- this is kind of more speculative, but i think, you know, there's probably a number of workplace practices you can trace to fields like medicine and law because that he are presee gas fields that other -- prestigious fields that other fields want to copy. you see that with internships. it's common practice in the medical profession just at the time when medical profession is rationalizing and modernizing itself in the 20th century. the country used to be full of substandard medical schools

producing people of doctors of highly varying quality, and the american medical association, in particular, steps in and says we need to, you know, we need to get rid of the quacks. we have to have certification, accreditation, all of these things which are arriving in the early 20th century in lots of different areas, but in medicine, one of the results is the internship as a period of applied post-graduate, as it were, kind of learning, a transition period between your school years as in medical school essentially and your work as a medical practitioner, so those are the origins, and it takes a long time. it's essentially not until -- it takes several decades, not until the 1930s and 1940s that you see other fields, other industries kind of looking to this internship model and borrowing the word, and as far as i could tell, people may yet find other

examples, in the 1930s, you see the field of public administration going through this same sort of process, so the city governments of new york, los angeles, detroit, the state government of california, and in the 1930s establishing internship programs, essentially just at the time when no surprise, governments are vastly expanding because of the new deal and because of various social programs, and there's a push to kind of rationalize public administration, and one of the things you rationalize when you do your sort of standardization and rationalization of the a field is the proses in -- process in by which people enter so internships fill that role. it seems like public administration, really, not politics so much, not what you might think of capitol hill intrernships -- internships which is a species unto itself, but administration is the first place you see

adopting the intern model. after world war ii, corporate america is looking to the internship. you see the growth of human resources in firms, you know, such that it becomes any firm of any size has a human resources department, and the human resources department is tasked with having a rational means of recruiting and bringing in new employees, and they establish internship programs, so you gip to see it in all kinds of fields, insurance companies, large companies like general electric, you know, at&t, these kinds of companies, but at that time, these are mostly paid situations. they are paid, training-based, and it seemed to be about recruitment. it's about, you know, going to the local colleges and universities especially, and bringing in the best and the brightest, and then, you know, paying them while you're training them, and sort of drawing them into the corporate

culture, and then they will work for you. it's, you know, we take a certain number of interns each year. these were sort of very structured programs based around ideas about structured training, so a new threat kind of enters in the 1960s and 70s, and as far as i can tell, this is where the academy becomes more interested in internships as a kind of applied learning, learning beyond the classroom. it's not the first example of experimental education. there's ideas about applied learning and learning beyond the classroom dating back 100 years, but the specific model of internships, like, for example, the coshology departments in the 1970s contact a city planning department. i know this happened in new york, and say, can you take a few of our students, you know, each year, each semester to, you know,