james garfield, the pams of james blane, hamilton fish, benjamin butler and many others. and together they provide a richness of detail that's helped me bring sam ward back to life. so here's the story of sam ward in a nutshell, and pecans were his favorite. his early years gave no hint of his future profession. the he was the first of six children. fis father was a highly respected conservative banker with the rock solid form of prime, ward and king and sam ward, the son, was expected to some day take his place there. when sam's mother died when he was just ten, his father was devastated and turned to religion. to the horror of his friends he destroyed all the wine in his well-stocked cellar. he become obsessed with his children's health and tried to shelter them from the world. this hand some house was on the corner of broadway and bond in manhattan. it wasn't until sam was a student at columbia that he began to learn about the wider world. his favorite spot was a cafe on william street. the more he learned of the world, the less sam wanted to be a banker. he somehow co

. >> you mentioned james garfield, but i also wonder if he had any encounters with either ulysses grant or twan and what they were like. >> could i talk about sam's relationship with other figures in the period, grant and twain and garfield. garfield was one of his best friends. the two of them loved the classics. sam always had a copy of homer in his pocket and he and garfield were drown together by their love of the classics. garfield also had a family back in ohio and he was in washington and he was lonely and he's one of sam's most frequent dinner guests. in his diary he recounts eating dinner at sam's three, four times a week sometimes. he was also a very prominent member of an important house committee. he knows why he's invited when certain people are going to be the guest. but he's okay with that. so they were very good friends. sam had very little regard for grant. he didn't like radical republicans. he disagreed with the way reconstruction was being conducted in the south and he really didn't like the scandals that were just swamping the white house in grant's second administr

well, james garfield was assassinated in 1881 because of patronage and that's when we passed civil service reform. the public said if you have is enough. i think, you know, look, the country is not functioning very well at this moment. i think most people agree about that. right now i think sentiments about that remain polarized by ideology and partisanship. if this sort of sense of dissatisfaction continues for the next couple of years as it happened the previous couple, i have a very time seeing the public not sweeping out the established interest. which again, this is something -- i mean, in the modern memory, we really have no recollection of that happening but it's happened before. it happened in the 1890s. it happened in the 1930s. it happened in the 1930s. it can happen again. at the end of the day despite the sort of -- go to washington, d.c. and see all of these faceless buildings on k street and know it's teeming with interest groups and lobbyists and so on and so forth. it doesn't change the fact the founding document of this country, the constitution powers the people with the

james garfield was assassinated in 1881 because of patronage.ook, the country is not functioning very well and i think most people agree about that. i think the sentiment about that remain very polarized because of ideology and partisanship. if this dissatisfaction continues for the next couple of years, i have a difficult time seeing the public not sweeping out the established interest. in the modern memory, we have no recollection of that happening. but it does happen before. it happened in the 1890's, the 1930's, and it can happen again. if you go to washington, d.c., and see these buildings on k street, you know they are chock full of interest groups but it does not change the fact that the constitution empowers the people with the final call. host: jay cost, author of "spoiled rotten." you read about the health care law that president obama pushed to get signed into law. you'd say that it was a symbol throughout the democratic party that various people tried to fight for. harry truman back in the 1940's. teddy roosevelt called for a nationa

. -- candidate and look at those muscles on james garfield there. those are incredible and that also he's got that in his hand and he's out there cutting out corruption and waste and abuse. that's all down there on the ground and i think that's the white house in the background. host: campaign posters, our guest is ralph eubanks who will be with us for the next half-hour or so. this is william howard taft and as i looked at this, i'm wondering if this is a positive or negative one. it says "good times" but it doesn't show him in a very flattering picture. guest: well -- host: he was our heaviest president. guest: he was our heaviest president and one of the things that we did in the book is added some supplemental images. one was the sheet music from the library of congress. his campaign slogan was get on the raft with taft. something that seems a bit perilous to do. the good times slogan, that was the slogan for the taft campaign. and some of that came from teddy roosevelt that he felt that he should project this really positive image so, of course

james garfield was assassinated in 1881 because of patronage and that's when we passed civil service reform. the public said enough is enough. look, the country is not functioning very well at this moment and i think most people agree about that. right now i think sentiment about that remain very polarized by ideology and partisanship. if this sort of sense of dissatisfaction continues for the next couple years as it's happened the last -- previous couple, i have a very difficult time seeing the public not sweeping out the established interests. again, it's just something -- in the modern memory we really have no recollection of that happening. but it's happened before. it happened in the 1980's. it happened in the 1930's. it happened in the 1820's t can happen again. at the end of the day despite this sort of go to washington, d.c., and see all of these sort of these facebook buildings on k street, know that it's chock teaming with interest groups and lobbyists. it doesn't change the fact that the founding document of this country, the constitution, powers the people. it's just the