When the United States Needed a Different Kind of President

Today our nation needs another President like James Garfield.

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So today’s article will be slightly different, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts from what I’ve been reading.

Recently I bought C.W. Goodyear’s new book: President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier. The book was published this year and is a biography of the twentieth U.S. President - James Garfield.

This is not a full review of the book or of President Garfield, as I’m only a few chapters into the book. But what I’ve read has been eye-opening: the United States desperately needs another President like James Garfield.

He spoke to people like they were his friends.

One individual wrote of James Garfield’s speeches:

It was honestly argumentative; there was no sophistry [a false argument with the intention to deceive] of any sort; every subject was taken up fairly…indeed, every person present, even if a greenbacker [member of a post-Civil War political party who opposed the reduction of the amount of paper money in circulation] or demagogue [someone who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of people, rather than using rational arguments], must have said within himself, “This man is a friend arguing with friends; he makes me his friend, and now speaks to me as such.” - Goodyear, President Garfield, 4

People from diverse political parties and with various political motivations saw President Garfield as someone who truly cared about them as people and who honestly considered issues that they cared about.

Another individual was impressed with how Garfield spoke of individuals who disagreed with him.

Having settled down in front of the fire…we began to discuss the political situation, and his talk remains to me one of the most interesting things of my life…One thing which struck me was his judicially fair and even kindly estimates of men who differed from him. Very rarely did he speak harshly or sharply of anyone, differing in this greatly from Mr. Conkling, who…seemed to consider men who differed from him as enemies of the human race. - Goodyear, President Garfield, 10

Garfield’s treatment of other people stood out in his time - a time of “toxic, rancorous [bitterness or resentment] politics” (Goodyear, President Garfield, 13).

The political environment of Garfield’s time sounds a lot like our own.

During a time of violence, corruption, bitterness, and hatred toward those with different views, James Garfield stood out as a man who treated people differently and believed in and tried to follow what Jesus said.

In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

We need a different kind of President in our “toxic” political scene filled with bitterness and hatred. Our last few Presidents have only added fuel to the fire - they’ve not fixed the problems; they made them worse.

We need a President who treats others like his (or her) friends, who treats others the way he (or she) wants to be treated.

He was a “workhorse” in a profession of “show ponies.”

Another reason that James Garfield stood out in the political realm and what was considered the “secret to his success” was simple.

He worked.

In a profession with the lamentable tendency to attract show ponies instead of workhorses, and a period favorable to partisan grandstanding [behaving in a showy manner to attract favorable attention], Garfield had embraced undramatic efficiency in the dries fields of lawmaking imaginable, obsessively tending to the vital, oft-neglected inner clockwork of American government. “Gentlemen…I believe in work,” he explained to one audience. - Goodyear, President Garfield, 9

Even in Garfield’s day, politicians had a reputation for being lazy - and only acting in ways to draw the most favorable attention possible from the media and the audience. There was no real substance to them - it was all for show.

Garfield was less concerned about making a good showing in the “political theater” than he was about creating sound policy.

Don’t we still have this problem in politics today? So many politicians “put on a show” for the cameras and the media while being practically useless in getting anything actually done.

We need a President who believes in hard work and getting the job done. We need a President who actually understands how to create and get good, sound policy passed through legislation. And we need a President who cares more about this than about putting on a good show for the cameras.

He was willing to consider a subject from many different points of view.

Being willing to listen to and consider other points of view will sometimes get you labeled as a “coward” or “spineless.” Garfield was no different.

Frederick Douglass has diagnosed him with a missing backbone. Ulysses Grant and Stalwart senators second the opinion…Even sympathizers of Garfield call him a political weather vane, sure to spin unpredictably in foul weather. - Goodyear, President Garfield, 10

But Garfield would respond to his critics that it actually took courage and a backbone to be willing to listen and learn from other points of view.

It is holding blindly to fixed opinions, and reflexively attacking those with different ones, which is the refuge of the weak and naive. “To be an extreme man is doubtless comfortable,” he has written. “It is painful to see so many sides to a subject.” - Goodyear, President Garfield, 10

My, don’t we suffer from this weakness in politics today?

Political parties take certain stances because the opposing political party takes a stance on the opposite end of the issue.

Politicians - and even Presidents - denounce their opponents as the scum of the earth, racists, traitors, and countless other things simply for holding different viewpoints on matters that are often quite complex.

We desperately need a President like James Garfield who is willing to listen to various points of view and consider the positives and negatives of those viewpoints.

He brought people together during a time of division and corruption.

Because of Garfield’s character traits listed above, he was considered to be a man who would bring people together rather than divide the nation further.

His nomination will produce perfect unison,” a Supreme Court justice predicts to a journalist, “because he has helped everybody when asked, and antagonized none.” - Goodyear, President Garfield, 11

However, President Garfield would not have very long to live as our nation’s twentieth president. He was shot just a few months into his first term and slowly died an agonizing death over the next 80 days.

But even as his life ended, he brought the nation together in a way it had not been in decades.

His condition keeps his countrymen united in anxious vigil. Perhaps more remarkably, the partisan faction perceived as being responsible for his shooting (by perpetuating the period’s toxic, rancorous politics) is ostracized; American voters use Garfield’s death to chart a course to calmer public discourse and cleaner government. - Goodyear, President Garfield, 13

Goodyear pointed out that “a theme of reconciliation threads” Garfield’s life together (p. 14).

Our nation’s last few presidents have not served to bring the nation together - our nation is as divided today as it has been in a long time. But all hope is not lost. The life of James Garfield was lived in a time very similar to our own.

We need a president and leaders in this nation like Garfield, who will seek to bring people together and reduce and eliminate corruption in our government.

This takes a certain kind of person.

A person like President James Garfield.

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I believe it’s high time we start considering the kind of people we are putting into elected office and not just what political party they claim to represent.

Lately, Presidents have been elected simply because “I’m not the other guy!” What a poor way of electing leaders that is. And we have seen the disastrous effects of electing people simply based on them not being the other guy.

What’s interesting about Garfield is that he became his party’s nominee for President because they couldn’t agree on the other candidates - but everyone could agree on the kind of character Garfield had.

It’s time we examine our leaders based on their character again.