“The richest endowments of the mind are temperance, prudence, and fortitude. Prudence is a universal virtue, which enters into all the rest; and where she is not, fortitude loses its name and nature.” - Voltaire

MT. MCKINLEY, ALASKA.

Endowed with the virtue of “prudence,” President McKinley had successfully completed three years as the chief executive when the twentieth century dawned. On the evening of January 1, 1900, an open house was held at the White House to celebrate the beginning of the new millennium. The White House was brightly lit with small electric bulbs. The president welcomed several hundred persons with his customary warm hand shake. Standing in line were diplomats, and the elite but the majority were ordinary citizens. Ida McKinley was strong enough to stand next to the president.

The celebratory mood was justified as the Spanish-American War had ended on terms dictated by McKinley. Before he took over the administration in 1897, the country was reeling from a decade long depression. Beginning in early 1890, farmers had struggled due to recession and it was followed by bankruptcy of several railroad companies and bank closures. The economy steadily improved in all fronts under his watch. “From 1897 until 1914, they ( farmers) enjoyed a short ‘golden age’ because of the value of their crops doubling during that period.”

On March 4, 1901, William McKinley was sworn in to begin his second term. Six weeks later, on April 29, 1901, a special train commissioned for the President and Ida left Washington to travel around the United States. The presidential suite was a “ virtual …home on the rails.” It had a drawing- room … a dining car with the finest silver, linens, china …. and a presidential bedroom with a marble-tiled bathtub.” Dr. Presley Rixey, who was Ida’s personal physician, along with one of her nieces, and a maid were on board.

The train headed south and made brief stops at several cities; Memphis was one of the stops. Ahead of the train’s arrival in that city, a group of women requested a luncheon meeting with the First Lady, but George Cortelyou, the president’s secretary, sent a regret note. “When Ida heard about it, she insisted on going and impressed the ladies with her sprightly demeanor. The president added luster by showing up at the meeting.” The train then sped through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. On May 6, 1901, while in El Paso, she was invited for a luncheon in Jaurez in Mexico. “She gladly accepted and became the first lady to travel to a foreign country.”

Then the train moved on towards Los Angeles. Unexpectedly, the mood on the “home on the rails,” turned somber. Ida developed a felon on the thumb after an accidental cut. Dr. Rixey lanced it and drained the pus. There was some relief but it was short lived. On the way from Los Angeles to Santa Cruz she had high fever due to recurrence of the felon which was incised again. On top of that, she had dysentery intermittently for over a week that did not respond to therapy. “Despite the pain and… fever, Ida gamely accompanied the president to speaking engagements .…” When her condition worsened, McKinley cancelled all engagements and the train raced to San Francisco.

Ida was in a stupor with high fever when she reached San Francisco. The consultants infused intravenous fluids and prescribed “cardiac stimulants,” indicating that she was dehydrated and had low blood pressure. Washington Star reported “Mrs. McKinley is slowly dying… not one in a hundred that she can be taken back to Washington alive.” The train sped towards Washington on May 25, 1901. Miraculously she survived and slowly recovered before reaching Washington. McKinley and Ida cut short the trip and stayed in Canton for the summer and returned to the White House in September.

Several new developments that summer brought cheer to the president. The Supreme Court ruled that Cuba and Puerto Rico could be governed as “U.S.territories.” That was the position favored by McKinley as it was the policy to designate any new land added to the continental United States initially as a territory. After a varying length of time, Congress would pass a resolution to grant statehood to a territory. For example, Utah territory was added to the Union as the 44th State in January 1896.

In March 1899, Congress established a commission to build a canal across Central American isthmus, the future Panama Canal. Britain, the most powerful nation at that point, was jockeying to have a foothold on the canal. McKinley through his Secretary of State negotiated and reached an agreement that let the United States have the sole authority to control the Panama Canal.

On the domestic front, he was troubled by the growing power of the industrial corporations and trusts. One day before he was sworn in for his second term, on March 3, 1901, U.S. Steel became the first billion dollar corporation. Reports of further consolidations and mergers unsettled him. He realized that his laissez-faire attitude enriched the bankers and industrialists and made them powerful. He told his secretary Cortelyou - “The trust question has to be taken up in earnest and soon,” and instructed him to gather relevant data on that matter. According to Cortelyou, “ I never saw [McKinley] more determined on anything than on this ( issue).” He recognized that high tariffs were not salutary to the national economy and planned to address the matter methodically.

By September, Ida was in good spirits and ready to travel to Buffalo to inaugurate the Pan-American Exposition on September 4, 1901. It was organized to showcase the advances made by nations of the American Continents over the preceding century. The next day, the president arrived at the fairgrounds with Ida in an open carriage. On September 5, 1901, McKinley in a short speech focused on trade and tariffs. He stated that “ Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. Commercial wars are unprofitable.” On September 6, President McKinley rode to the Temple of Music to attend a concert. Ida was exhausted from the travels and other activities over the preceding two days and chose not to attend.

The country seemed to be prospering . However, while the wealthy got wealthier, not all members of the working class benefited from the improved economy. For that reason, circumstances were ripe for social activists to agitate for a fair share of the wealth and gave birth to anarchist movements in the midwest and northeast. One of the anarchists was Leon Czolgosz, son of a Polish immigrant. He was reclusive, introverted, and anti-social. He had seen his parents being laid off frequently and struggling to make a living. He too had difficulty holding on to a job. However, he was quite knowledgeable as he read the newspapers regularly. Czolgosz found his calling in the anarchist movements. He made an unsuccessful attempt to associate himself with one of the leaders, Emma Smith, a Russian immigrant.

When Czolgosz found out that McKinley would be at the exposition in Buffalo, he kept track of the president’s schedule. He stood in line at the Temple of Music to greet the president, who insisted that “no one should be turned away from shaking the president’s hand.” Czolgosz, with a gun concealed in a white handkerchief, shot McKinley. Two bullets landed on his upper abdomen and his attempt to fire a third was prevented by an African American who was standing next to him. Security personnel and others pounced on Czolgosz who was bleeding from facial injuries. Observing that, McKinley told the officers, “Don’t let them hurt him.” As he was being dragged out, Czolgosz said, “I did my duty.”

The president was rushed to an emergency hospital on the exposition grounds. Altogether eight doctors convened there and determined that surgery was necessary immediately. McKinley was alert and gave his consent. Rather than transferring him to a well-equipped hospital nearby, the surgeons decided to perform the surgery in that hospital that did not have a full fledged operating room. Dr. Rosewell Park, who had been appointed to be the Medical Director of the exposition, had a good reputation as a surgeon, particularly in taking care of gunshot wounds. Unfortunately, he was out of town performing a surgery at another hospital and arrived after the surgery was completed. Dr. Mathew Mann who performed the surgery was an expert gynecological surgeon but had no experience in handling gunshot wounds. In fading sunlight, one assistant held a mirror to reflect sunlight and another held a light bulb over the surgical site. The surgery seemed successful.

The President was stable for a few days but deteriorated rapidly in the subsequent week and passed away on September 14, 1901. The coroner found that infection caused gangrene of the stomach wall and that it extended into the pancreas. Septicemia was declared to be the cause of death. However, experts believed that the care provided was suboptimal. Interestingly, a mentally deranged woman purposely shot herself in the abdomen to mimic the injuries sustained by McKinley. Dr.Roswell Park performed the surgery and the lady survived. Experts believe that, as in the case of President James Garfield, McKinley was not served well by the doctors. ( President Garfield’s story was published in three parts on this site recently)

Leon Czolgosz was interviewed by two psychiatrists and it was determined that he was not insane. He was sentenced to death by a jury. Before he was put to death by electrocution, he said “I killed the President for the good people. I am not sorry for my crime, but I am sorry I can’t see my father.” McKinley’ s formative years were spent in Poland, a town named after Polish generals who participated in the Americans Revolutionary War. It is ironic that the son of a Polish immigrant, Leon Czolgosz ended McKinley’s life. (Polish General Tadevsz Kosciuszko played a pivotal role in the American Revolutionary War. That was acknowledged by General George Washington)

THE FINAL HOURS AND WORDS OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY

Immediately after he sustained the gunshot wound, McKinley asked Cortelyou to convey the news to Ida cautiously. Ida was informed after the surgery was completed. She stayed near her husband and put up a brave front. On the afternoon of September 13, realizing that his condition was declining, he told the doctors “Gentlemen, it is useless. I think I ought to have a prayer.” Ida was brought in to see him at that stage. With a weak voice, he said, “Gentlemen, goodbye all,” and whispered into Ida’s ears, “It is God’s way. His will, not ours, will be done.” She whispered back “I want to go with you.” He responded, “We are all going, my dear,” and as he was lapsing into a stupor, he was heard whispering his favorite hymn, “Nearer my God to thee.” He passed away on September 14, 1901.

CUBA, PEURTO RICO AND PHILIPPINES : NINETEENTH CENTURY WARS, TREATIES, DOCTRINES, MANIFEST DESTINY, MANIFESTOS, and LEGACY OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY

For initiating the Spanish-American war and embarking on imperialist policies, McKinley was not well regarded by most twentieth century historians. To appreciate the contribution of President McKinley and how he transformed the presidency, we need to take in to account important events that took place in the nineteenth century.

Several presidents before McKinley had an eye on Cuba. When President Jefferson purchased Louisiana territory from Napoleon in 1804, he accepted Spain’s suzerainty over Florida. Privately Jefferson mused at the prospect of Florida falling into the U.S. hands and by extension Cuba as well. The predominant populace of Florida were Seminoles under Spanish occupation. General Andrew Jackson, in the First Seminole War of 1817-1818, crushed the Seminoles. When dust settled, in February 1819, U.S. and Spain signed a treaty known as Transcontinental or Adams- Onis Treaty ceding Florida to the United States. ( John Quincy Adams as the Secretary of State negotiated the treaty).

THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES

In an essay on this site under the title, “ Legacy of the 9th President William H. Harrison,” I wrote a brief outline of the War of 1812. Battle of Tippicone and Battle of Thames were fought in the Ohio territory between U.S. and Colonial British Canada. Native American tribes in those territories aligned with Britain. When the battles ended, leaders of the native tribes were forced to cede vast tracts of their land to U.S.

President Jefferson’s view in 1812 was that, “ The acquisition of Canada, this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching,” but that did not pan out.

At the same time in 1812, another war was raging at the very heart of America. It is referred to as “ The War of 1812,” ; some historians called it “ The Second Revolutionary War.” To protect their maritime commerce, British navy played a pivotal role. Washington D.C. was captured and set to fire. President James Madison was forced to evacuate the White House. Dolly Madison, the First Lady, was the last to leave holding on to the portrait of George Washington and important documents. Congress declared war on Great Britain in June 1812.

After nearly two and a half years, in December 1814, the war ended formally with signing of “The Treaty of Ghent”. Both Britain and Americans claimed victory but neither of the two won or lost. Their pre-war boundaries were restored, but Native Indians paid a heavy price as they were betrayed by their British allies.

Monroe Doctrine was conceived by John Quincy Adams when he served as the Secretary of State under President James Monroe. The doctrine asserts that Europe should not interfere in geopolitical issues in North or South America. Further more, only the United States would have the exclusive right to step in to address the issues should it become necessary. Unluckily for Adams, though he was the author of the doctrine, Monroe got the credit. The number of times the doctrine was invoked are too many to list in this narrative. Venezuvela is the latest example and President Trump has hinted that Cuba could be the next.

John Quincy Adams succeeded Monroe as the President and served one term from 1825 to 1829. He considered Cuba to be “ The Natural Appendage,” - an extension of North American continent. In a letter to his Minister to Spain, Adams wrote that when Cuba is ripe and gets disentagled from Spain, it would gravitate towards the United States. That view became famous as “ Ripe Fruit Theory.” President Adams felt that Cuba would be vital for commerce and security but made no attempt to acquire it.

“Manifest Destiny” was the term coined by John O’ Sullivan, a pro- slavery southern journalist. He asserted that it was the destiny of the United States to extend its territory across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was published in “United States and Democratic Rewiew” in July 1846. During President James Polk’s term from 1845 to 1849, that destiny manifested.

In 1846, U.S. early in Polk’s Presidency, Congress passed resolutions to absorb Texas and Oregon into the U.S. There was a vast territory under Mexican control that had to be brought in-house. President Polk planned and instigated a war against Mexico. General Ulysses Grant, who would lead the Union Army in the Civil War and a future president, participated in that war. Grant wrote in his autobiography that it was an unjust war. President Polk urged the U.S. Congress to declare war on Mexico stating that the southern neighbor had started the conflict.

On May 13, 1846 Congress obliged and declared war. American General Winfield Scott captured Mexico City. It was a humiliaing defeat for Mexico. To end the war it had to give up more than half of its territory under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was signed on February 2, 1848. California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and parts of Colorado were ceded. President Polk also secretly negotiated with Mexico to purchase Cuba from Spain but it did not work out.

Next it was the turn of Franklin Pierce ( 1853-1857). He did not own any slaves but was a staunch pro-slavery advocate. He had hoped to annex Cuba to add another slave state to the south for electoral vote advantage. After he won the election, banners with bold letters were carried “ THE FRUITS OF THE LATE DEMOCRATIC VICTORY -PIERCE AND CUBA.”

President Buchanan, who served one term from 1857 to 1861, championed acquisition of Cuba. Before he won the presidency, Pierce appointed him to serve as the Minister to Great Britain. In 1854, in Ostend, Belgium, Buchanan met with American Ministers to France and Spain to come up with a plan to acquire Cuba. They prepared a document named Ostend Manifesto, which affirmed that United States would have the right to purchase Cuba from Spain, but, if that did not work out, to declare war to acquire it. Buchanan as the president was preoccupied with other problems and could not pursue the Ostend Manifesto. Abraham Lincoln succeeded Buchanan in 1861. On account of the Civil War and its aftermath, Cuba disappeared from the American horizon for three decades.

It is evident that long before McKinley became the president, several of his predecessors contemplated annexation of Cuba. Events during his first term forced his hands.

CENTRALITY OF NAVAL POWER IN EMPIRES

An important book written by U.S. Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan ( 1840- 1914 ) “ The Influence of Sea Power upon History” was published in 1890. He wrote that “ naval power is requisite to national expansion and expansion is requisite to national survival.” Going back in history to ancient times, Thayer explains that it took seventeen years for Rome to prevail over Hannibal of Carthage. Ultimately, in the Second Punic War, Roman Navy enabled Rome to end Hannibal’s rein.

Mahan narrates several examples of European wars in which Navy played a decisive role and that naval supremacy was responsible for Great Britain to emerge as the most powerful Empire. McKinley, TR and other important leaders were influenced by this book, which was hailed by an analyst as “…the most influential work on naval strategy ever written.” Mahan points out the importance of “ stations along the road ( on the seas ), like Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and Mauritius, not primarily for trade but for defence and war.” It is in that context that Cuba, Hawaii, Guam, and Philippines were considered by McKinley to be crucial for strengthening U.S. Navy.

FILIPINOS ( NATIVES OF PHILIPPINES)

What to do with Philippines was a question that was deliberated by McKinley, TR, and important Republican leaders. All of them concluded that Philippines should be administered by the U.S because “Filipinos were not capable of self-governence.” McKinley was concerned that France or Britain could fill the vacuum created by Spanish withdrawal. Also McKinley stated that he was divinely inspired to take over Philippines. He revealed that one night he kneeled down and prayed to God for guidance. His inner voice informed him that U.S should govern Philippines, “ to civilize and Christianize” the people. First Lady Ida McKinley seems to have influenced her husband in this matter. The irony is that Spain had already converted the majotity of Filipinos to Catholicism. Protestant Christian evangiaists saw the hands of providence in American victory over Catholic Spain.

On the other hand, TR was inspired by a non-divine earthly source. English poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a seven stanza poem specifically addressed to American leaders. The poem “ The White Man’s Burden,” was published on February 1, 1899 in New York Sun. Kipling exhorted American leaders to annex the islands to civilize the barbarian native people. The message reached TR who was then the Governor of New York. TR stated that he did not think much of Kipling’s verses but he agreed with the message conveyed by the poem urging the white man to take up the burden of civilizing the “ lesser breeds….” Two stanzas of the poem were read in the senate by a senator who opposed annexation. It was of no avail. On February 7, 1899, U.S. Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris which included annexation of Philippines in addition to Cuba, Puerto Ricco and Guam. Kipling was honored with the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907.*

I have digressed considerably to point out that McKinley’s acquisition of the islands was to empower U.S. Naval forces. Protecting U.S. commerce, having coaling stations at strategic Naval harbors and being battle ready were the objectives. That is just as relevant in the twenty- first century as it was in the nineteenth.

In the twentieth century, U.S. supported dictator Batista’s government in Cuba. After Batista was ousted by Fidel Castro in 1959, President Eisenhower contemplated military intervention and laid the ground work for invasion. His successor, John F. Kennedy, orderd the infamous “Bay of Pigs” invasion which turned out to be a disaster.

Even in the tweny - first century, Cuba occupies the minds of American leaders. President Trump, after the military action in Venezuela, hinted that Cuba could be next. I doubt that he will risk another venture as he is bogged down with Iran in the battle to control the Strait of Hormuz.

In 1896, Winston Churchill, as a war journalist, wrote an article in the Saturday Review that it is better to leave Cuba under Spanish rule because “ Two- fifths of ( Cuban ) insurgents are… ( non-whites) ” and added that if they succeeded, “… (it could) result in another black republic.” The possibility of acquiring Cuba in 1898 and its potential to become a state bothered some American leaders at that time.

LEGACY OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY

As a man, quite apart from his solicitude towards Ida, McKinley possessed extraordinarily humane qualities; the adjectives that were used by his contemporaries are numerous - “courteous, good-natured, warm, humble, a man of prudence, compassion, and competence. He held no grudges, had no enemies and was universally loved”. One of his close friends said of McKinley that “ He loved his wife, family and the country in that order.”

As the chief executive, McKinley, according to his close associates, “wore a mask” and that the mask concealed his steely determination. Most historians of the twentieth century did not have a favorable opinion of President McKinley for initiating the Spanish-American War and then acquiring distant Philippines. As feared if U.S. did not annex Philippines, another power would likely have taken over. Japan was an aggressive power at that time. During the Second World War, U.S was overthrown by Japan and ruled Philippines with such brutality that when General Douglas returned, he was given a heroes welcome. Philippines is an ally and U.S. maintains has Naval Ports in Manila and in other locations.

He may have been persuaded or forced to go to war with Spain but once the conflict started, McKinley’s policies served American interests in the long run. He was kind and empathetic towards family and fellow citizens at home but was blind to the sufferings of the Filipinos and Cubans after American occupation. Such paradoxical frame of heart and mind have been and will remain prerequisites for a gentleman when he or she chooses to be the chief executive of a nation, but irrelevant to an authoritarian.

TR, the accidental president who succeeded McKinley, was one of the dominant figures of the twentieth century. In a speech in September, 1901, Vice-President Roosevelt said that “the U.S. should speak softly and carry a big stick in foreign policy.” McKinley did that effectively without fanfare. In contrast, according to his contemporaries and historians, Teddy Roosevelt was “ impetuous, voluble, grandiose, and amusing. ” Not withstanding above traits, TR was an extraordinary leader and turned out to be a transformative president. In his first legal suit against Northern Securities Company, Supreme Court by 5 to 4 decision, ruled in favor of TR’s position. That was a crucial decision that allowed him to pursue his agenda and won him fame as a “ trustbuster.”

TR’s stamp on American history during his seven and a half years tenure was longer and wider, thus obscuring the shorter four and a half years of McKinley’s consequential rein.

Manifest Destiny was at play when McKinley, despite TR’s insensitive remarks about him, chose TR to be his running mate. According to some authors, Roosevelt was not generous and did not give much credit to McKinley, considering that his success was built upon the foundations laid by the president he served.

Based on their analysis, recent authors have expressed the following opinions:

McKinley is the “Architect of the the first modern president, based on his embrace of the tools of the executive power, his agenda, resolve, and foreign policy expansionism.…” Robert W. Merry.

The first modern president. Lewis L. Gould and Wayne Morgan.

“In the Days of McKinley.” written by Margaret Leach. One reviewer of that book commented that “… Leech pulled together complexities (of the) times into a coherent picture of how this purposeful, deliberate and self-effacing politician moved men and events stealthily and effectively through tumultuous times.” (Margaret Leech was President Truman’s daughter).

Walter Lafeber of Cornell University summed it best- “Theodore Roosevelt became the chief of the nation, and also of the “empire” that his predecessor McKinley had built in less than five years to initiate the American Century.” ( 3, page 286).

Roosevelt made a good-will gesture by unveiling a statue of a lady on a pedestal in a park in San Francisco with President McKinley’s name inscribed on the platform. When I saw that statue, it was covered with bird droppings as usually is the case with most statues. Such memorial structures rarely, if ever, catch public attention. (The image is below the Bibliography)

In 1917, the highest mountain in the Denali National Park in Alaska was named Mount McKinley. At the request of Alaska’s State Legislature, President Obama changed the name back to Mt.Denali. (Denali means “the great one.”) President Trump admired McKinley. In his second Inaugural Address on March 4, 2025, he stated - “ President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” Trump also stated that McKinley was a good businessman. In reality, McKinley did not start or own any business. President Trump on his very first day in office reverted the name of Mt.Denali back to Mt. McKinley. (5)

McKinley’s laissez-faire attitude towards the industrial and financial barons and imperialistic adventures particularly in occupying the Philippines, tarnished his image. He had failed to appreciate that the prosperity did not touch the ordinary citizens. If his second term had not been cut short, I believe, he would have addressed the needs of the common citizens. His successor TR, with justification, has been acclaimed as the architect of antitrust legislations limiting the power of corporations and trusts and defending the interests of the working class. He was labelled a “Progressive” for valid reasons.

As for Ida McKinley, historians until recently have characterized her as “an ordinary, self-seeking, disabled person who made her husband’s personal life and, in turn, his presidency burdensome. Based on new information obtained by a few twenty-first century historians, she did not seem to have affected her husband’s political career or presidency. In fact, some authors contend that President McKinley discussed some domestic and foreign policy matters with Ida as she was well read and acquainted with world affairs. She was an accomplished pianist, and after dinner when she was well, she would play the piano and they would read some books and verses from the Bible.

Before and after her years in the White House, she kept herself busy crocheting slippers. It was estimated that she had made close to ten thousand slippers and distributed them to children and families of Union and Confederate veterans. Ida retreated to Canton after her husband passed away and chose to live alone. She declined her sister Pina’s offer to live with her. Without her husband’s loving attention and depression, she was not expected to live long . On most days, weather permitting, she visited the grave sites of her husband and daughters. She died in 1907, a few weeks short of her fiftieth birth day.

In 1920, the American Football Association, the precursor to the National Football League, was founded in Canton. It is well known to Americans, as it houses the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In the shadows of that city which is hailed as the “Hall of Fame City,” stands President William McKinley’s National Memorial and Presidential Library.

Websters dictionary defines an empire as “a sovereign state whose possessions have been extended by military or economic conquest, and colonization to include countries or territories originally independent.” By that definition, during McKinley’s presidency, U.S. transitioned from a continental power into a global empire. President Ronald Reagen called the erstwhile Soviet Union as an “ evil empire.” Many nations now feel that U.S has become an evil empire.

Rudyard Kipling at the time of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Celebration in 1897, two years before he wrote the poem “The White Man’s Burden,” reminded the British Empire that power and splendor can not be sustained for ever : “ Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre.” According to Untermeyer, above biblical verse served as a warning and prophecy to Britain (7).

Ninveha was an ancient Babylonian City State that was destroyed by rival kings. Its ruins are in Mosul, Iraq. Tyre is a city located about eighty miles south of Beirut. In its hey day, as a Phoenician City State it flourished but was repaetedly attacked. It was destroyed by Alexander the Great).

I will coclude this lengthy essay with an English poets words:

“ It is not their long reins or frequent changes which occasion the fall of empires, but their abuse of powers.” George Crabb ( 1754-1832).

Every empire from pre- historic times came into existence by destroying their rivals and inflicting enormous suffering on humanity. U.S is no exception in that regard, but American Exceptionalism is unique and can be revived by prudent leaders for the benefit of one and all around the country and beyond.

In addition to the books I have listed in the previous essays on American Presidents, I gathered additional information from the following books.

1. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, October 24, 1901, 145: 451

2. Miller, Scott : The President and the Assassin, Random House, 2013.

3. Merry, Robert. W: President McKinley, Architect of the American Century, Simon and Schuster, 2017.

4. Mahan, Alfred Thayer : The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1660 -1783) Digireads.com Publishing , Copyright 2020.

5. Daniel Immerwahr: “Tariff Men”, an article in The New Yorker, June 23, 2025.

6.Sjursen, Daniel. A : A True History of the United States, Steerforth Press, New Hampshire, 2021.

7. Untermeyer, Louis : Lives of the Poets, The Story of one Thousand Years of English and American Poetry, Simon & Schuster, 1959.

MONUMENT TO PRESIDENT MCKINLEY IN SAN FRANCISCO. THE FOUNDATION STONE WAS LAID BY TEDDY ROOSEVELT.

PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In late spring of 1863, during the American Civil War, General George Crook ordered Ohio’s Twenty-third Regiment to march to Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to face the Confederate forces. In the course of that operation, Crook’s forces and the Ohio Regiment found themselves surrounded on all sides by the enemy forcing them to retreat in haste. In an orchard two miles away, there was another Union Army unit led by Colonel Brown, who was unaware of the order to retreat. The officer in charge of the Ohio regiment, considering it his duty to convey the message to withdraw, ordered a young lieutenant to ride and deliver the message to Colonel Brown. The messenger , facing incessant fire, galloped across the open land and creeks to delivere the message. When he returned safely, the commanding officer exclaimed, “ I never expected to see you in life again.” The commanding officer was Major Rutherford B. Hayes and the messanger was twenty-one year old Lieutenant William McKinley. Hayes and McKinley would serve as Governors of Ohio on their way to the White House.

In the political sphere and as the Chief Executive, President William McKinley kept in mind the above sentiment of his predecessor. Hayes had served only one term from 1877 to 1881 and did not want to seek a second term. It should be obvious to readers how far the Republican Party has veered from the above principle under the current leadership. Neither the party nor the country are being served well.

President Hayes was aware of McKinley’s courageous exploits during the battle at Antietam, the bloddiest war of the civil war. As the quartermaster, McKinley risked his life to deliver non military supplies to the troops. Hayes commented that “ … ( McKinley was) exceedingly bright … and gentlemanly” and that “ he promises to be one of the best.”

After the war ended, Hayes learning of McKinley’s interest in public office, suggested that he should instead pursue a more lucrative career in the burgeoning industrial realm. McKinley did not follow that advice and followed his own and Ida’s instincts that he would have a brighter future in the public arena. By the time McKinley sought and won the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency in 1896, he was a well known figure in the country. Theodore Roosevelt, did not support McKinley for the nomination but campaigned for him in the November election.

The presidential campaign is worth recounting. McKinley decided not to travel by train to campaign. He was concerned that Ida would not be able to handle the stress of journeying on the train with frequent stops. Instead McKinley conducted a “Front Porch” campaign similar to President James Garfield. Everyday, hundreds of supporters flocked to his house in Canton. According to one estimate, 750,000 people from thirty states showed up between June 19, and November 2, 1896. He promised to strengthen the tariff’s further and gold standard to support “ greenback,” the paper currency. Great Britain, which bought the most products from U.S. and other European countries used the gold standard. Hence, McKinley wanted to retain the gold standard that his immediate predecessor, Democrat President Cleveland favored.

In contrast, the Democratic opponent, Nebraska Senator William J. Bryan took to the train. He was a powerful speaker and campaigned as a “Progressive” championing the cause of the farmers and industrial workers. Bryan was a staunch supporter of silver to back up the green back, believing that “free silver” would put more money in circulation and better serve the interests of the commoners. In an electrifying speech at the convention, Bryan said, “ You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold.”

Bryan traveled extensively delivering over five hundred speeches in twenty- nine states. Once, on a single day, he addressed crowds in thirty locations. Republican leaders were shaken up when Senator Bryan appeared to be gaining the upper hand. Yet, the campaign managers could not persuade McKinley to abandon the Front Porch Campaign and tour the country similar to his opponent. McKinley was conscious that he could not match the oratorial skills of Bryan and confessed to the campaign staff that “ I have to think when I speak.”

The wealthy think tanks of the Republican Party stepped in to change the trajectory of the campaign. The effort was headed by McKinley’s long time friend Mark Hannah, a wealthy industrialist from Canton. Hannah convinced the financial and industrial tycoons that their intersts would suufer substantially if Bryan prevailed. It did not take much time or persuasion to convince the millionaires to open up their coffers. Ultimately, McKinley’s campaign collected close to $ 3.5 million, equivalent to $ 9 to 10 billion today. That was the largest campaign fund raised by a presidential campaign up to that time. Bryan’s campaign mustered a mere $300,000.00 in comparison. Utilizing those funds, Republicans mailed pamphlets, booklets, and other paraphernalia to millions and flooded the streets with banners and posters. William of Ohio prevailed over William of Nebraska with a comfortable popular and electoral college advantage.

THE PRESIDENCY 1897-2001

In his first year in office, President McKinley, returned to protective tariffs, which had been an issue from the beginning of the American nation. Under the first Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, tariffs were passed to help the American manufacturers. Throughout the nineteenth century, most of the presidents had to deal with this matter. Most Presidents favored and a few opposed tariffs and a few advocated lowering them. For example, Grover Cleveland, called for lower traffics. Interestingly, Cleveland crossed party lines and supported McKinley, believing that he would serve the interests of the nation better than Bryan; an example of placing the interest of the nation above that of the party.*

When Grover Cleveland regained the presidency in 1893, the economy had slid into severe depression. Most affected were ordinary industrial workers and farmers. That “ Panic of 1893 “ was mainly due to failure of major rail road companies. Even after Cleveland’s term ended in 1897, the economy had not recovered. Therefore, when McKinley took over the reins, he persuaded Congress to raise the tariffs further to make “American producers supreme in the world markets.” It should be of interest to the readers that President Trump drew inspiration from McKinley on the tariff issue. But, unlike all his predecessors, as is well known, President Trump, without seeking formal Congressional approval, has been raising the tariffs indiscriminately. Besides, Trump claimed that McKinley was a businessman which is far from the truth. McKinley never started or operated a business.

In his inaugural address, McKinley expressed concern about “bad corporations… organized trusts … (that) control arbitrarily, … trade among our citizens.” However, with the country facing depression, and high unemployment, he concluded that it was necessary to let the industrial and financial power houses have their way. Mergers with and or acquisition of smaller companies by the likes of Standard Oil, McCormick farm machinery manufacturer, steel and rail road companies flourished. Under his watch, mergers and acquisitions began and by 1903, there were over three hundred mergers. The mega rich prospered but that did not tickle down to the working class. Historian Henry Adams wrote “McKinleysm, a system of combinations, consolidations, and trusts, ( were) realized at home and abroad.”

McKinley was the president during the fading years of what Mark Twain called the “Gilded Age.” In his book under that title published in 1873, Twain mocked the society that shined like gold on the outside but was rotten at the core. The Gilded Age lasted for over three decades from 1870 to well into the early years of the twentieth century. The economist Thorstein Veblan ( 1857- 1929 ), in his book, “ The Theory of the Leisure Class” coined the word “conspicuous consumption,” to describe the manner in which the privilaged class were spending their wealth.

In the inaugural address, McKinley declared that he would “… aim to pursue a firm and dignified foriegn policy , which shall be just, impartial, ever watchful of our national honor. We want no war of conquest. We must avoid of the temptation of territorial aggression. War should never be; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency entered until every agency of peace failed.”

McKinley failed to keep that promise due to circumstances that were not foreseen by him. Foreign affairs dominated most of his presidency and domestic issues took a back seat. It began with Cuba. The Spanish Empire could not squash the independence movements in their South American colonies and lost all of them by 1820. Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines and Guam were under the Spanish rule in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1895, during the second term of President Grover Cleveland, a revolutionary movement had begun against the brutal dictatorial Spanish rule. There was pressure from the U.S. Congress for American intervention but Cleveland firmly declined. When he was handing over the rein to McKinley, President Cleveland advised him not to get involved in Cuba.

At the outset, McKinley too, while sympathetic to the aspirations of the Cubans, did not want to intervene. Several factors forced him to change his mind. The wealthy American entrepreneurs and multinational conglomerates viewed the island from a business perspective. About three hundred businessmen who had significant investments in Cuba, submitted a letter to the president requesting help to protect their enterprises. In addition wealthy influential newspaper publishers, William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, advocated ousting Spain and taking over Cuba. The most vocal person in the administration was assistant secretary of Navy, Teddy Roosevelt (TR). In 1897, Roosevelt wrote to a friend, “ In strict confidence… I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.” On another occasion,he commented that McKinley lacked the spine and called him, “a white livered cur.”

TR resigned as Navy Secretary and put together a “ U.S. Voluntary Cavalry,” an expeditionary force that would become famous as “Rough Riders.” Congrss passed the “ Voluntary Army Act” that approved the Rough Riders as a formal entity outside the regular army. Some from Ivy league schools, cowboys, hunters, few Native and African Americans joined as volunteers. TR entered Cuba with his troops and captured San Juan Hill. TR was the only one on a horse back that charged up the hill. Holding a sword, a hat, and rimmed eye glasses, an iconic image of TR emerged and captured the imagination of the Americans.

The suffering of the Cubans, the safety of Americans and their business interests weighed heavily on McKinley. With that in mind , he ordered the U.S.Naval ship “Maine” to Havana port in January 1898. On February 15, a massive fire broke out destroying the ship and killing 250 personnel. McKinley ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the fire. Preliminary investigations concluded that the attack came from “outside”, implicating Spanish Navy. Until that event, McKinley had resisted the calls from the senators, congressmen and the press for military intervention. A cry for war erupted with patriotic fervor.

Remember the Maine!
To hell with Spain!

Then a comment made by someone from the Spanish Embassy in Washington was leaked to the press that “ McKinley as a weak glutton for popularity.” Still, McKinley expressed a desire to resolve the issue peacefully without entering into military engagement. He was wary of initiating a war which could reignite economic depression. He instructed the Secretary of State, John Hay, to negotiate with Spain on behalf of the Cubans. But the demands put forward by the president were so stringent that the negotiations were doomed to fail. When Congress appropriated $50 million for any combat, McKinley was ready. Simultaneously, when John Hay was negotiating with Spain, he began preparing for war. Spain agreed to some demands but refused to give up full control of Cuba.

On April 11, 1898, McKinley formally sought Congressional approval to declare war on Spain, but it was not approved until April 25. Spain was the first to declare war officially, one day earlier on April 24. Once the war began, McKinley established a War Room to discuss the strategy. He was the first president to set up a Press Room for the journalists and barred yellow journalism.

Spain lost the war in less than six months and agreed to sign a peace treaty on December 10, 1899. It was called the “splendid little war” by Secretary Hay. In addition to granting independence to Cuba, McKinley demanded and obtained Puerto Rico and Guam. The U.S. Senate passed an important amendment not to annex Cuba fully but to hold it as a territory governed by Cubans with American supervision. That was McKinley’s position which was later approved by the Supreme Court. McKinley, however, retained full control over Guantanamo Bay. In 1903, President TR formally leased the Bay from Cuba for a nominal fee. After 1960, Fidel Castro refused to accept the funds. It has remained in American hands and is infamous for holding 911 related al-Qaida prisoners and waterboarding.

Back to Philippines. That Island Nation remained the only major colonial possession of Spanish Empire in the last decade of the nineteenth century. There had been a revolutionary insurgency against the oppressive Spanish rule for many decades. TR, when he was still the Assistant Naval Secretary, without informing McKinley, ordered U.S. Naval Commander Admiral Dewey to attack the Spanish Naval forces in Manila and prepare to take over the Philippines. When McKinley found out about TR’s order, quietly, without expressing his displeasure openly, sent a telegram to Admiral Dewey to capture only Manilla Bay but not to proceed beyond that. McKinley had not sought Congressional authority for that action.

Shortly after Manilla fell into American hands, Philippines was taken over as a colony. That move was opposed by Mark Twain, former U.S. Presidents Grover Cleveland and Republican President Benjamin Harrison. (He had served one term from 1893 to 1897). Steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie financed an anti -imperialist movement that attracted hundreds of Americans from all walks of life. The movement lost steam in course of time without making an impact.

After Spain was dislodged and U.S. took over, the nationalists began to wage a guerrilla warfare on Americans. To combat the Philippines freedom fighters, McKinley initially sent thirty thousand troops. In three years, the number of troops swelled to nearly ninety thousand. Most of us know of the costly wars we waged in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afganistan, but , few I think are aware of American misadventure in the Philippines.

McKinley ordered General Arthur MacArthur to lead the American forces and William H. Taft to govern Phillipines. General MacArthur waged a brutal war and extinguished the aspiration of the freedom fighters. Taft governed the American colony efficiently and won accolades. Thanks to General Arthur MacArthur and Taft, McKinley was saved from facing a protracted war.

That was not all. McKinley orchestrated the annexation of Hawaii in 1898. He told a close friend that “ we need Hawaii just as much and a great deal more than we did California” and added “ it is manifest detiny.” He then entered into a triumverate agreement with Germany and England to acquire one third of the Samoan Islands.

Next overseas intervention was in China during the nationalistic Boxer uprising against the European and American missionaries and business interests. France, Germany, and England, were vying with each other to carve out parts of China as they did on the African continent. Japan and Russia had territorial ambition on China. McKinley, without consulting Congress, dispatched five thousand troops to China which had declared war on U.S. That intervention saved the lives of hundreds of Europeans and Americans. Besides, McKinley skillfully negotiated with the European leaders to establish an “Open Door” policy so that mainland China would not be divided by European powers as they did in Africa. China would be open to all nations for engaging in free trade.

All in all, McKinley’s first term as the president ended on a high note. During an informal conversation with two friends, he had confided that he did not want seek a secnd term in 1900 - “ I would be the happiest man in America if I could get out of the office in 1901. I have had enough of it, heaven knows. I have had all the honor there is in this place and have had enough responsibiliteis to kill any man. However, he officially did not express disinterest and the Republicans enthusiastically nominated McKinley to run for a second term. TR seconded his nomination at the convention with a fiery speech, concluding that “ … our nation, glorious in youth and strength, looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.

McKinley’s Vice-President had passed away earlier that year making room for a new candidate for the spot. TR was favored by the majority of the delegates. Influential Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Taft also persuaded McKinley to have TR on the ticket. Despite his reservations, McKinley accepted TR as his running mate. The Democrats again chose Williams Jennings Bryan to run against the incumbent president.

McKinley’s campaign slogan was simple and effective -“Prosperity at home and Prestige abroad.” TR campaigned vigorously with stump speeches that rivaled those of Brian. McKinley’s in his first inaugural speech in 1896 affirmed that ,“We want no war of conquest.” By the election time in 2000, that broken promise and imperialism that he initiated did not matter. As in most elections, the majority of the voters remember the promises made by the candidates or what the party platform approved at the conventions.

Bryan lost by a wider margin than on his first attempt. He stuck to the silver platform again which had become irrelevant by that time. Incidentally, Bryan ran and lost in 1908 to William Taft . President Wilson appointed William Bryan as his Secretary of State but he resigned protesting U.S. joining the First World War.

Brief digression. In July 1925, in the famous Scopes evolution trail, termed “ Monkey Trail” Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes, a biology teacher in Tennessee who wanted to teach Charles Darwin’s concept of evolution. Tennessee had prohibited teaching evolution in public schools. Scopes was charged with a crime and William Bryan was engaged to be the prosecuting attorney. During the trial Clarence Darrow asked Bryan to take the stand for cross examination as an expert on Bible. Bryan was uncomfortable and struggled to answer Darrow’s questions. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.00, which was paid by journalist H.L. Mencken. That was one final victory for Bryan. The debate is still with us in the Twenty-first century.

An account of President McKinley’s second term, the rationale for American acqusition of Philippines, and the fianal yeras of First Lady Ida will be presented in Part 3.

Bibliography : In addition to the sources listed in Part 1, the following books provided additional information.

1. Brinkley, Alan & Dyer Davis : The Readers Companion to the Presidency, Houghton Miffin Company, N.Y. 2000.

2. Williams R. Hal: Realigning America, McKinley, Bryan and the Remarkable Election of 1896.

3. Zinn, Howard : A People’s History of the United States, 1492 - to Present, Harper Collins, 2003.

4. Nations and Empires: Milestones of History, Readers Digest, Newsweek Books, N.Y, 1970.

   * President Grover Cleveland’s presidency is presented on this site in two parts. Interested readers can browse the Archives.

   ** “ Inherit the Wind” is a fictionalized 1960 movie based on the Monkey Trial. Spencer Tracy, Fredric March and Gene Kelly were the actors.

“Nothing is more noble than, nothing more venerable than fidelity - faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.” — Cicero

Early in the nineteenth century, Americans from the eastern states began to migrate westward to start their lives afresh. Close to Lake Erie and about fifty miles southeast of Cleveland, several frontier villages cropped up in Ohio. Those villages would evolve into small towns. One such town was Canton, which was founded in 1805 with a population of five hundred. Two families, the Saxtons and the McKinleys, who made their home in Canton, would become well known across America towards the end of the nineteenth and at the dawn of the twentieth century. Thereafter they faded out of the memories of most Americans and their stories have been relegated to the realm of political historians.

I have chosen the above quotation to begin this essay to bring to light the remarkable story of a gentleman, William McKinley who made Canton his home in 1867. He was a gentleman in the true sense of the word - kind, affable, and honest. Above all, his genuine love and devotion to his wife was legendary in his own lifetime.

William McKinley was born in 1843, in Niles, a small industrial town. His formative years were spent in another small town named Poland, which was about eighteen miles east of Niles. After obtaining the required qualifications, he enrolled in Albany Law School in New York and graduated in 1865 and settled down in Canton, Ohio, to begin his career as an attorney. He had served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was breveted major by Abraham Lincoln in March 1865.

In 1815, John Saxton moved to Canton from New York carrying a printing press and did well publishing a newspaper titled “Ohio Repository.” It was a successful publication but his son James, though well educated, did not have the appetite to continue as a journalist. Instead, he ventured into real estate and banking. By 1867, Canton had evolved into a small town and also became the Stark County Seat, with a population of around seven thousand. James Saxton’s ventures bore fruit. He established a bank that became the largest in the county. Attorney William McKinley’s office was on the second floor of James Saxton’s Stark County Bank. Thus began the intertwining stories of the Saxtons and McKinleys.

James Saxton and his wife Catherine, known as “Kate” had three children, two daughters and a son. The eldest of the three, Ida Saxton, who was born in 1847, was a bright student and studied at two girls-only seminaries in her early years. In 1865, after Ida graduated from Sanford School in Canton, she entered Brook Hall Female Seminary in Media, Pennsylvania. Two years later she returned to Canton and at the age of twenty, joined the Presbyterian Church School as a teacher. Ida Saxton was a beautiful and charming lady who became the belle of the city and sought after by a number of suitors. She fell in love with a southerner, John Wright, who was a major in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The veteran earned a law degree and had established practice in Maryland. Under what circumstances and when Ida met John Wright is uncertain, but they committed themselves to marry at a future date. It was ironic considering that James and Catherine Saxton were passionate opponents of slavery and were members of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canton. Ida too shared that sentiment. Her father was not pleased with her choice but did not stand in her way.

Sometime in 1864 or so, one of the older sisters of William, Anna McKinley, moved to Canton from Poland, Ohio. After she graduated from high school, Anna started her career as a teacher in the Methodist School in Canton and became the principal in 1867. As a fellow school teacher, her path crossed that of Ida Saxton a few times during weekend community picnics. Anna, foreseeing bright prospects for an attorney in Canton, persuaded William to move to Canton.

Ida Saxton was well educated and would have easily qualified to study in a college. But In those times, no matter how well qualified they may have been, women were not considered bright enough to enroll in a college. The teaching profession was considered the ideal vocation for women, and many wealthy families would send their daughters to tour Europe to enhance their knowledge. John Saxton sent Ida and his second daughter Mary on a “ Grand Tour” of Europe accompanied by a school teacher in Canton. (Mary was affectionately called Pinna). Before sailing to England in the summer of 1869, Ida, Pinna and John Wright were dining at a restaurant in Canton. As destiny willed it, Anna McKinley and her brother William happened to be at the same restaurant and Anna formally introduced her brother to Ida. Major William Mckinley, within two years of settling in Canton, earned respect as an attorney and in 1869 was elected to serve as Stark County Prosecutor. Being prominent persons in a small town, Ida and William were aware of each other and their paths had crossed prior to their formal introduction in that restaurant. One of the authors of his biography commented that William was “instantly struck” by Ida’s beauty.

During the whirlwind European tour, the sisters would visit museums, academic institutions in Britain, Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland. While in Europe, they met Pope Pius IX. Throughout the tour, she kept in touch with John Wright and exchanged letters often. In Paris, she purchased a card holder with a letter “W” inscribed on it, a gift intended for her fiance upon her return home. Unfortunately, in September 1865, while travelling in Switzerland, she received a message that John Wright died suddenly due to meningitis. She was devastated. With a broken heart, she was home by Christmas of 1869. It took some months for Ida to regain her composure. She had worked part time in the bank as a teller when she taught in the school. After she returned from Europe, to keep her occupied, James Saxton had her work in the bank regularly, giving her more responsibilities over time. William McKinley frequented the bank ostensibly for transactions but often showed up with bouquets in hand. The impression that Ida made on him at the restaurant had stayed with him.

Major McKinley, though short in stature with a height of five feet and six inches, was handsome with a kind and personable visage. In 1870, he began to court Ida at a time when she was overcoming the grief of losing John Wright. After courting her for a few months, William McKinley proposed to Ida, and she accepted his overture enthusiastically. On January 25, 1871, John Saxton held the wedding in Canton followed by a lavish reception that was attended by close to a thousand people. The couple took their marriage vows earnestly, promising to “ love, honor, and cherish in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us apart.”

Twenty five years later, on March 4, 1897, William Mckinley was sworn in as the 25th President of the United States.

EARLY LIFE AND ASCENT TO THE HIGHEST LAND OF THE COUNTRY

In contrast to the wealthy background of Ida Saxton, William McKinley had grown up in a lower middle class environment and was the seventh of nine children. His parents were devout Methodists and believed in their faith’s doctrines expounded by their founder John Wesley - “Do no harm and do good” and “combine love of God with a love for neighbors through social service and promoting justice.” The senior McKinley worked in an iron foundry and earned barely enough to meet the needs of the large family. He valued education highly and, dissatisfied with the local schools, moved the family to a nearby town, Poland, in which the schools were considered superior to those in Niles. After graduating from the seminary in Poland, William McKinley joined Alleghany College in Pennsylvania, but within a few months, overwhelmed by depression and a nervous breakdown, he returned home. After he recovered from that mental agitation, he wanted to return to the same college but could not afford the expense. To support the family, he worked as a postal clerk and as a teacher. In June 1861, he joined the twenty-third Ohio infantry division and participated in the bloodiest encounter of the war at Antietam. Abraham Lincoln signed a letter commending Major McKinley’s service in the Union Army.

When Ida Saxton’s studies were interrupted by the Civil War, she joined her mother for a year to prepare bandages at the Canton Soldiers Relief Association. When the Civil War ended, Ida was studying in the seminaries and William Mckinley was in Albany College to study law. While Ida was touring Europe, McKinley planted his roots in Canton and blossomed as an attorney. Early in his career, McKinley volunteered to defend coal workers when they went on a strike against their wealthy employers. The agitation turned violent and several workers were arrested. In the criminal case, no lawyer wanted to defend the workers. McKinley volunteered and won acquittal of all the coal workers. To express their appreciation, they collected some money to pay him, but McKinley declined to accept it. He was acclaimed as a working man’s attorney. That case endeared him to a wealthy industrialist, Mark Hannah, who became his life long friend and a key figure in his presidential campaigns.

For a year and a half after their marriage, until the spring of 1873, Ida and William were blessed with heavenly happiness. They settled down in a house provided by her father, close to Saxton House, a landmark building in Canton. On Christmas Day in 1871, their first daughter was born. She was named after Ida’s mother Catherine and was affectionately called “Katie.” Six months later, Ida was pregnant with her second child, but the joy was dampened by the news that her mother had a terminal illness. In April 1873, mother Katherine passed away, just two weeks before the second daughter was born. Tragically, the newborn baby died when she was five months old. The loss of her mother and baby plunged Ida into severe depression. To compound her challenges, the delivery had been difficult and complicated resulting in chronic debilitating swelling of the legs due to phlebitis and onset of migraine. Dreading the prospect of losing daughter Katie, Ida kept her close to her chest most of the time. As feared, three- year- old Katie died in June 1875 due to scarlet fever. The fairy tale romance and marital bliss of William and Ida McKinley ended in less than five years.

To add to their woes, apart from seizures, Ida developed migraine. The seizures manifested in two distinct forms. One would cause blackouts and the other would induce classic convulsions with frothing of saliva at the mouth. In that era, epilepsy was considered a mental illness and some who suffered from it were committed to institutions. McKinley refused to abandon Ida to life long confinement in an asylum.

McKinley endured the ordeal stoically and looked after Ida with empathy and utmost affection. According to friends, he never lamented or became impatient with her. In early 1876, he was at a crossroad - either to give up his ambition to serve through political engagement or to keep the promise he made to his bride Ida “ to devote himself to her through health and sickness.” He kept the two roads next to each other and walked on both simultaneously with remarkable agility. It was not, however, a self-centered decision. McKinley was prepared to abandon his burgeoning political career. He wrote to Ida - “ If you would suffer by the circumstances surrounding me in a competition for a public station, I will devote my ambition to success in public life.” But Ida rejected his benevolent offer. In fact, she encouraged him to pursue his political career. Ida believed that her husband would be successful in the political arena. McKinley by then had become a well known figure in the state Republican Party and decided to run for the U.S. Congress from the eighteenth District. He was thriving as an attorney when he chose to run for Congress and knew that his income would decline by half if he won and moved to Washington.

McKinley was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1876 and served in the capital for a total of seventeen years from 1877 to 1881 and again from 1885 to 1891. He made his mark in the Congress as a skilled debater to advance the Republican agenda. In 1889, he was appointed Chair of the important Ways and Means Committee. While he was sympathetic to the hardships faced by the working class, he believed that business enterprises should be supported for economic growth and prosperity. To protect American companies from foreign competition, McKinley proposed and succeeded in passing tariffs on foreign products. McKiney’s Tariff Bill was his signature achievement as a Congressman. Following the Congressional career, he climbed up the ladder and was twice elected to serve as the Governor of Ohio. He proposed and implemented laws to help railroad workers and address child labor. After successful careers as a U.S. Congressman and Governor of Ohio, the logical next step was to seek the presidency of the nation. In his second term in office, Governor McKinley won the nomination of the Republican Party at the 1896 convention.

In the two decades after the personal tragedies and despite the demands of the elected positions, Congressman McKinley kept an eye on Ida at all times. In Washington for some years they lived in Ebbitt House, a hotel close to the White House. He would usually take morning walks with a cigar in hand or ride in a carriage, sometimes with Ida. The sudden and unexpected occurrence of seizures was a constant source of fear and anxiety. He and Ida continued to search for remedies, but numerous doctors that McKinley consulted had no answers. The president of American Neurological Association, Dr.Silas Mitchell, concluded ( postulated ) that women facing stress were more prone to nervous disorders (hysteria) and seizures. He recommended “rest cure,”which consisted of a strict diet, bed rest, and isolation, to prevent hysteria. Rest cure stopped neither the migraines nor the seizures. Massages somewhat eased the headaches and bromides prescribed for convulsions were ineffective.

William checked on his wife frequently when he was at home and made sure that she had adequate personnel to attend to her in his absence. He had her sit right next to him at receptions given for visiting dignitaries or at important meetings. On occasions, when Ida had a seizure with frothy secretions emanating from her mouth, he was reported to have placed a handkerchief on her face and quietly moved her into the residence, returning to continue the event. When he was out of town, he wrote a letter to her every day. Space does not permit me to pen several more incidents that reveal the depth of his love and devotion.

From time to time, Ida would be well for a few weeks raising hopes that she might some day recover completely, but seizures invariably recurred. While in Washington, she joined the Legal Aid Society to distribute fresh food and flowers to the poor and to the patients in hospitals. In Columbus, as governor’s wife, she hosted parties when she was well. If necessary, she would sit in a chair to greet the guests.

This essay primarily covered the remarkable journey of William McKinley prior to his ascent to the White House. Most biographies of an American President barely touch upon the life and times of the First Lady. Ida McKinley’s story is unique. The sensitivity and grace exhibited by President McKinley dealing with his wife’s disability reveals a man of high moral strength in his personal life during extraordinarily difficult circumstances. In the next essay, the presidential campaign and his first term in office from 1887 to 1900 will be the focus with brief notes covering Ida as the First Lady.

Bibliography:

1. Louie P. Gallo : A Companion to First Ladies, Edited by Katherine A.S.Sibley. Published by John Wiley & Sons ,Inc 2016.

2. Merry, Robert W : Architect of the American Century, Simon & Schuster, N.Y. 2017.

3. Philips, Kevin : The American Presidents, William McKinley, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, General Editor. Time Books, Henry Colt & Co, N.Y. 2017.

“ Love is loveliest when embalmed in tears”-

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Scottish novelist & poet.

In the United States, September 23, 1881, the first day of fall, was a somber day. That afternoon, crowds gathered along the railroad tracks from Washington to Cleveland. In Princeton, New Jersey, flowers were strewn on both side of the tracks. Americans by the thousands stood silently with teary eyes to pay homage to President James Garfield whose casket was on its way to his final resting place.

Eighty days after Garfield sustained a gunshot wound by an assassin, Garfield died in Elberon, New Jersey on September 19, 1881. His wife, Lucretia Garfield was by her husband’s bedside witnessing the painful ordeal he had endured. After the autopsy, Garfield’s body was taken to Capitol Hill by train and placed in the rotunda. The casket was kept open for two days.“Vast throngs passed by the open coffin… the face was ghastly. Altogether there was the slightest resemblance to the heroic form and face of … James Garfield.” As the body began to decompose the casket was closed and after the memorial services on the morning of September 23, the casket was transported to Cleveland.

Most of us would have seen the poignant image of Jacqueline Kennedy standing behind the flag draped coffin of President John Kennedy with John Jr, saluting his fallen father. I did not come across any image depicting the scenes that had followed the tragic end of President Garfield.

We can visualize the scene described by a journalist in a newspaper. “Mrs. Garfield bore the trying ordeal with great fortitude and exhibited unprecedented Christian courage. She gave way to no paroxysms of grief and after the death became evident, she quietly withdrew to her own room. There she sat, a heart broken widow… laboring under a terrible strain and despite her efforts, tears flowed from her eyes, and her lips became drawn in her noble attempt to bear the burden with which he has been afflicted.”

Considering how short President Garfield was in office and even shorter duration of Lucretia Garfield’s time in the White House, it is not surprising that they are unknown to most Americans and historians. In three prior essays published on this site - Vicissitudes of Destiny in two parts and American medicine in the second half nineteenth Century, the life and times of President Garfield were presented. His widow, Lucretia Garfield, was an exceptional First Lady of the nineteenth century America. I believe that her story deserves a place on this site.

Lucretia was born in a small farm community in Hiram, Ohio in 1832. Her father, Zeb Rudolph, a farmer and carpenter, and her mother Arabella Mason provided a happy environment at home for Lucretia and her four younger siblings. Zeb and Arabella, recognized the importance of education and enrolled the children in local primary schools. Lucretia joined the Geauga Seminary in neighboring Chester village in 1849. James Garfield joined the same seminary that year and they were classmates for three years. When he was eighteen years old and Lucretia seventeen , both joined the Western Eclectic Institute, later named Hiram College. The two were separated in 1853, when James Garfield headed to Williams College in Massachusetts and Lucretia pursued her education locally to become a school teacher. As teenagers, they had a positive impact on each other and both foresaw the potential to unite in marriage, particularly Lucretia.

Before departing to Williams College, James made the first move by communicating his interest through a letter without committing himself. For the next two years they exchanged letters regularly. Upon graduating from Williams College in 1855, James Garfield returned to Hiram College as the Professor of ancient languages and literature and a year later also took over as the President of the same college. After three years of courting and vacillation, Garfield finally agreed to marry in 1858. He called her Crete from the time they were students at Hiram College.

On January 1, 1848, when he was a sixteen year old teenager, Garfield kept a diary and wrote regularly until the day he was shot, except during a few weeks of travel in Europe as a Congressman. Following are a few entries from that journal that shed light on his moods and thoughts in the early years leading up to their marriage.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD’S DIARY ENTRIES REGARDING CRETE

When Garfield and Crete were students in the Geauga seminary, her name does not appear in his journal. Most of the entries contain a few words depicting his work as a laborer and the subjects he had studied and the books he had read on a given day. He attended Church on Sundays regularly and recorded the gist of the sermons he heard. While most of the entries are brief and mundane, there are also quite a few lengthy notes that are akin to literary compositions and also many well written original poems in the classical style.

Few notes from the journal are as follows:

Saturday, September 25,1849: Took a job building a small house, put up the frame and commenced enclosing.

Sunday, September, 1849 : Went to meeting twice today, one prayer meeting, one Mr. Ames spoke. ( C.G.Ames was a teacher at the seminary).

Monday, 27 September, 1849 : Studying. Studying. Studying.

(In one of his entries, he wrote that he gets up at or before 5:00 in the morning and goes into the recitation rooms alone and studies till 10:00 P.M. The number and variety of literary books in English, Latin and Greek he read is astonishing).

November 5,1851:

I read 125 lines in Caesar today and finished the third book. I have undertaken to finish the fourth book this term which is as far as they generally read. I shall then be ready for Virgil. We also got to the fables in Greek. Good times.

COLLEGE YEARS 1852-1854

After graduating from the seminary in 1852, Garfield joined Hiram College.

The following are excerpts from the diary that reveal Garfield’s interactions with Crete when they were students at Hiram College.

Hiram, Ohio November 12, 1852.

“At one o’clock, the students met and listened to two orations, one by Miss. Lucretia Rudolph, and a little by myself. She has a fine piece, full of good, practical, sound common sense, and elegantly and eloquently expressed. The school was then dismissed with some tears and many regrets, and we hope much advantage to all.”

Hiram, Ohio, February 23, 1854:

Thus passed the winter till the 23rd day of February when the term closed….That evening I had a long conversation with Luceretia Rudolph, and found a mutual desire to become better acquainted, and agreed to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance, for though we have known each other four or five years, we are still comparative strangers, and though there is reciprocal attachment existing between us, still we both feel that there is not sufficient knowledge of each other’s inner being to predicate any serious consideration. I hope, by the assistance of my Heavenly Father to move cautiously and judiciously in reference to the sacred subject of matrimony. In all this may I be supported by his favor and mercy.

Hiram, Ohio, June 24, 1854:

The day has arrived, and I am to leave. I went to Lucretia for about two hours before leaving. We love each other, and have declared it, but we are both determined to let our judgement rule in this matter. Time which changes all things may make changes in us or our circumstances. But we agreed to correspond and write freely our thoughts. …. I have the most entire confidence in her purity of heart, conscientiousness, and trustfulness and truly love her qualities of mind and heart. But there is no delirium of passion nor overwhelming power of feeling that draws me to her irresistibly… but I feel inclined to be cautious and so does she.

On November 16, 1854, Garfield wrote a letter to Crete expressing her deep love for her- “I can not trace my heart’s history from its first little tendrils of my heart began to cling to yours. … But as the time rolled on they grew in strength and numbers till they have intertwined around your whole being.” Even after writing such a tender love letter, he had misgivings about Crete’s disposition about her love for him and his own for her. In the diary entry nine months later he confesses to his journal that his doubts were misplaced.

Ravenna, Ohio, September 11, 1855:

Last evening I reached Ravenna and found Lucretia in, if possible, a darker cloud than I was. The agony of spirit I suffered when I left Hiram with all the terrible load on my heart, was not only equalled, but surpassed when I found her heart so oppressed. She had entirely given up all hope of my calling to see her again before I went away. It stung me to the soul to think that my manner had been such as to give her such suffering. Never before did I see such depths of suffering and and such entire devotion of heart as was displayed in her private journal which she allowed me to read. For months, when I was in the midst of my toils, her heart was constantly pouring out its tribute of love. From that journal (of Lucretia) I read depths of affection that I had never before known that she possesed. A new light had burst in upon my soul, and I felt as if the vail (veil) which had hung between our hearts was lifted.

Williams College, August 6, 1856:

Commencement. Graduated. (from Williams College in New England)

Hiram, Ohio, August 18, 1856:

Fall term. Commenced teaching at Hiram. ( Western Eclectic Institute).

Hiram, Ohio, November 19, 1857:

Today I am 26 years old. One year in the second half of my half century - 26!! That sounds old.

My present view - like my past - is this. If I ever marry, I expect to marry Lucretia Rudolph. The people curse me because they imagine I intend to marry Rebecca J. Selleck. Now that has not been my expectations and has not been. My only question is whether I shall marry Lucretia or remain single.

Both were devoted members of the Disciples of Christ and attended the functions at the Church regularly. Garfield also preached on some Sundays. Their personalities, however, were on a different plane. Whereas Crete was a shy and reserved, Garfield was gregarious and enjoyed conversation with like minded persons on a variety of topics. Crete was on par with James intellectually and both shared common interests. She had studied Latin, Greek, English literary works, and in addition was well versed in music. She was a simple, pious family oriented woman who yearned for a quiet life married to Garfield.

At Williams College, Garfield had met and enjoyed the company of a pretty young lady, Rebecca Selleck. It was believed that they were romantically entangled but James dismissed it in one of his entries in the diary.

Crete and Rebecca both attended Garfield’s graduation ceremony at Williams College in August 1856. That association with Rebecca, likely hurtful, did not dissuade Crete to abandon him. After Garfield returned to Hiram College he continued correspondence with Rebecca for a while and pleaded with Crete to be “patient.” In September 1856, Crete gave up and released him from his commitment, but he declined to take the offer and asked for additional time. By fall of that year, after courting Crete for five long years and wavering, Garfield felt duty bound and gave in.

The diary entries pertaining to marriage are surprisingly casual and unsentimental.

Hiram, Ohio, November 11, 1858:

Was married to Lucretia Rudolph by President H.L.Hitchcock of Western Reserve College.

Sunday, November 14, 1858 : Preached at Newburgh.

When Crete finally consented to marry, she seems to have been genuinely in love, but I suspect, Garfield was still uncertain. The couple did not have a honeymoon and checked into a boarding house after the wedding. By their own admission, their marriage was rocky from the beginning.

“Man’s love of man’s life (is just) a part; it is women’s whole existence.

English poet Lord Byron (1788-1824).

The above observation by Byron perfectly applies to First Lady Crete. Garfield led an extremely busy life, engaging himself with utmost energy as a teacher, lawyer, soldier, politician and nearly two decades as a Congressman. Considering that fact, his love for Crete was only a part of his busy life for nearly a decade after the marriage. His romantic escapades as a bachelor can be overlooked, but, understandably, his brief romantic involvement as a married man tarnished his image. Obviously, the teachings at the Disciples of Church did not provide the resolve to be faithful to his wife. If one wishes to be charitable in his defense, it would be that there were long periods of separation during the war years, when he lived in Columbus as a Ohio State Senator and then as Congressman in Washington. In five long years after marriage, there were together intermittently only for twenty weeks.

Garfield was conscious of his inability to contain himself when he felt attracted to other women who were equally enamored. In December 1851, when he was twenty years old, he wrote in his diary that he read a book by David Nelson, “ The cause and cure of Infidelity.”( was published in 1836)

Crete was aware of her husband’s infidelity before and at least one dalliance after marriage. Garfield asked her to forgive him and she did. That has been the case with four twentieth century First Ladies, who had to absorb the pain silently. ( Florence Harding, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy and Hillary Clinton ). None of the nineteenth century presidents had extra marital affairs when they were in the White House.

When a pious and noble woman like Crete gives her heart to a man, guided by her religious faith and commitment to the family, love for the beloved tends to be all encompassing. As Byron noted, under proper circumstances, women’s love can become her “whole existence.” However, Garfield was not a philanderer for which Byron was infamous. Byron’s opinion about women’s love for a man stems from his personal experiences. Several women loved him dearly and would have stuck to him if he had not abandoned them.

TRANSITION FROM “LADY WASHINGTON” TO FIRST LADY OF THE NATION

Until the mid nineteenth century, the American President’s wife was not called the First Lady. George Washington’s wife Martha was simply referred to as “Lady Washington.” Mrs. Washington recognized that her major role would be to serve as a hostess and initiated certain traditions which were followed by her successors. The first President lived in Philadelphia throughout his two year term, except for a few weeks in New York after his inauguration. The wives of the nineteenth century American Presidents were special and unique in their own way. To embellish this narrative, I will digress a bit and add a few sentences about some of them who preceded Crete Garfield.

James Adams, the second President, moved into a partially constructed, barely furnished White House towards the end of his one term in office. His wife Abigail Adams, had limited time in the White House. The Adams were both intellectuals and deeply committed to each other were the happiest first couple, despite being separated frequently, often for many months and few years at a time.

Dolley Madison, wife of the fifth President James Monroe was called “ Lady Presidentess.” The eighth President, Martin Van Buren was a widower for eighteen years before he won the presidency and did not remarry. His daughter-in-law Sarah served as the“ Mistress of the White House.”

President Buchanan was a lifelong bachelor, the only one to date. His niece, Harriet Lane served as the Hostess. In 1858, Harper’s weekly referred to Lane as “ Our lady of the White House … and two years later in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, her picture was printed with the caption, the “ First Lady in the Land.” Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd was the first one to be stamped with the unofficial status of First Lady.

Eliza Johnson, wife of Andrew Johnson who succeeded Lincoln, was debilitated due to tuberculosis and stayed in isolation in a room on the second floor and rarely stepped out from that room. Their daughter took over the responsibility of running the White House.

First Lady Julia Dent Grant, President Ulysses Grant’s wife was an outgoing charming lady, and won laurels for being a good hostess. “ With the Grant’s in the White House, the Gilded Age ( as Mark Twain called it ) had an appropriate First Family.” She thoroughly enjoyed her role as the First Lady and wanted her husband to run for a third term in 1876. Grant was still popular and would have easily won the nomination and probably even the presidency. Secretly, without informing his wife, Ulysses Grant notified the Republicans that he did not want to be nominated.

President Rutherford’s wife, Lucy was the first college graduate to serve as the First Lady. She was a good hostess but did not serve alcohol and earned the title “ Lemonade Lucy.” She began the tradition of Eastern Egg Roll on the south lawn.

School teacher Crete Garfield stepped into the shoes of Lemonade Lucy. As her days as the First lady were few, Crete could not leave an imprint that would catch the eyes of the historians. However, even in that short period she served well as a hostess, and also provided valuable advise to her husband.

CRETE GARFIELD IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Crete recognized that her husband possessed the attributes to be a president. Some months after Garfield was reelected to U.S. Congress in 1874, she told him that a “ far-seeing spirit was saving him for the time when he would become, in poet Tennyson’s words,

The pillar of people’s hope
The centre of a world’s desire.

Seven months before the 1880 convention, she wrote to him on June 4, “ I begin to be afraid that the convention will give you the nomination, and the place would be unenviable with so many disappointed candidates.” She had “tough-minded insights” and provided well needed counsel to her husband. After he won the presidency, she warned him that Senator Conkling would be the one he should be concerned about. “ You can put everyone of them in his political grave if you are a mind to, and is the only place where they can be kept peaceable.” She added further, “You will never have anything from those men but their assured contempt until you find them dead.”

The second volume of Garfields diary spans the years 1874-1875. It contains primarily his work as a congressman. Crete’s name appears numerous times in the diary. Crete also kept a journal and seems to have entered her thoughts which, I understand, also included her views in the political arena and the discussions he had with her husband.

LIFE AS A WIDOWED MOTHER AFTER LEAVING THE WHITE HOUSE

After their first child died of diphtheria in 1863, they grew closer. It was further strengthened after Garfield built a house in Washington in 1869 and they stayed together continuously thereafter and enjoyed blissful life for twelve years. In volume 2 of the dairy Crete appears in over one hundred and thirty times. Attending Church on Sundays, shopping, attending plays and concerts in theaters with her appear frequently. On her forty-second birthday in 1874, Garfield thanked her for “being born and for being his wife.” They devoted themselves to their five surviving children, four sons and one daughter. (Two had died in childhood). Crete retreated to Lawnfield, their farm house in Mentor, Ohio, to raise her children in a tranquil environment with emphasis on education.

In 1887, Crete came to Washington to dedicate a statue of Garfield at the foot of the Capitol Hill. The American public, through private subscriptions, generously contributed $300,000.00. One of Garfield’s close friends invested the money in Government Bonds that yielded 4% interest. The financial security enabled her to lead a comfortable life and to raise her children. The oldest son, Harry Garfield served as the President of Williams College, his father’s alma mater. Their second son James, Jr Served as the Secretary of the Interior in Teddy Roosevelt’s cabinet.

As a widow for thirty- three years, she lead a fruitful life. When rumors appeared in 1882 that she was planning to remarry, she was furious and “ expressed humiliation that anyone could believe me capable of ever forgetting that I am the wife of General Garfield.” She was a voracious reader throughout her life and continued to read widely. She wrote poems, and translated Victor Hugo’s books and gave talks on literary topics to women’s groups periodically.

Her most important and enduring contribution to America was building a library in Lawnfield to hold all the books, documents, public and private letters she could find. She also preserved over twelve hundred personal letters she exchanged with her husband. Upon entering the White House, she had envisioned expanding the library room and adding new books to the collection. What she could not do in the White House, she did at Lawnfield. Presidential Library established by Crete is the first in American history and set a precedent for future presidents. It is now a National Historic site.

Bibliography:

Some of the information for this essay was also obtained from the books listed previously in the prior three essys. The following books provided substantial new material.

1. Boller, Paul F : Presidential Wives, An Anecdotal History, Oxford University Press, 1988.

2. Two volumes of The Diary of James Garfield: Volume 1, 1848- 1871. Volume II, 1872-1874. Edited with introductory notes by Brown, Harry James and Williams, Franklin D. Michigan State University. (1967). I could not access the Volumes 3 & 4 of his diaries or the diary of Lucretia Garfield.

“Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.”
20 th President of the United States :James A.Garfield (1831-1881).

Introductory note : The first essay under the heading, “ Vicissitudes of Destiny,” covered the 1880 Republican Party convention that elected James Garfield as it’s nominee. The second essay dealt with the presidential campaign, Garfield’s Presidency, and the ordeal he had to endure after sustaining an assassin’s gunshot wound. He succumbed after ten weeks of aggressive treatment under the supervision of Doctor Willard Bliss, Surgeon in Chief at the Armory Hospital in Washington. (Doctor is his given name ). My objective in this narrative is to provide a brief outline of the events and how they set in motion important reforms in the medical profession.

From the fifteenth through the early nineteenth centuries, the primary focus of the doctors and scientists was to unravel the normal anatomy and physiology of the human body and to discern the pathological changes brought about by diseases. Research in that arena was primarily conducted in Europe. I believe that Americans in the colonial period and after the birth of the nation were preoccupied with nation building, absorbing European immigrants, industrialization, and wealth generation. Such a milieu could not have been conducive to basic research in biological sciences. Nevertheless, in the nineteenth century, American dentists discovered the soporific properties of ether and chloroform. That led to the introduction of anesthesia, one of the greatest and everlasting contribution to medicine by Americans.

In the United States, in the second half of nineteenth century, homeopathy and allopathy were the two primary systems of medical practice in vogue. Hippocrates, the Father of Western Medicine, laid the foundation for the basic principles for allopathy, which remained static for over two millennia. Early in the twentieth century, allopathic system woke up from a long slumber primarily by scientific advances in Europe. By shedding antiquated traditions, and diligently introducing new concepts, allopathy has evolved into the most dominant medical system across the world.

Fredrick C. Waite, a nineteenth century medical historian, states that homeopathy was practiced in the early Christian era and was dormant until Samuel Hahnemann in Germany resurrected it in 1796. German immigrants introduced the practice in America. The first Homeopathic Medical School opened in Philadelphia in 1848. Bliss and his associates and allopaths in general looked down upon homeopaths. Garfield and his wife Crete had a greater faith in homeopathy, but Bliss did not allow any homeopathic physicians to have a say in the management of the president. Whether the patients were treated by homeopaths or allopaths, if the patients survived in that era, it was either due to their strong constitution, and sometimes, I think, may have been due to a placebo effect.

Allopathy and homeopathy are derived from Greek - “homeois” means of the same kind, “allo” the other kind and “pathiea”suffering. Homeopaths prescribed extremely small quantities of their medicines derived primarily from herbs. Their objective was to induce or enhance the “same kind” of symptoms ( suffering ) to eliminate the disease. “Like cures Likes” is their philosophy. Patients had a favorable opinion about homeopathy because their prescriptions did not induce significant immediate adverse side effects.

Allopaths focus on the “other” method which attempts to arrive at a diagnosis and initiate therapies to cure the disease when possible or at least mitigate the symptoms if a definitive diagnosis and or specific therapy is not available.

In Garfield’s time, the allopaths followed the traditions of their predecessors to treat their patients. For example, bleeding to decrease the volume of blood, cupping to induce blisters on the skin to draw out fluid, emetics and purgatives were in common use. For example, when George Washington had high fever due to a throat infection, he was bled profusely and died within a few days. Such aggressive measures, dubbed “heroics”, dominated medical practice for nearly two millennia. It took several centuries of research, discoveries, and new inventions for old treatments to phase out. A new era of truly “heroic”, but evidence based effective allopathic practices ushered in the twentieth century. The term allopathy is merely of historical importance.

Dr. Bliss, from the time he arrived at the train station, took over and appointed himself as the physician in charge. After eight hours, Garfield was moved to the White House into a room on the second floor. He acted as the gate-keeper allowing access to only those he approved. From the out set, Bliss focussed on finding the bullet. At the train station, he and three other surgeons, had inserted their unwashed fingers into the tiny entry point of the bullet. Subsequently, Bliss sought second opinion from several other consultants who concurred that the bullet should be located and removed expeditiously. All the consultants held important positions in academic centers or in the army. Around twelve physicians were involved at different times. One surgeon thrust his unwashed hands deep into the wound and reported that he felt fragments of the ribs and spine.

In the days that followed, several doctors under the supervision of Bliss continued the quest to locate the bullet. They probed the track created by the bullet wound with unclean hands and instruments. Nealton probe, invented by a French surgeon, Auguste Nealton, was tried without success. During one attempt, a probe got stuck in the track and the surgeon had to press hard on the lower chest to withdraw it.

After three weeks, Alexander Graham Bell was brought in to try one of his new inventions. Bell was reported to have said that “it sickened him to watch doctors blindly seeking a bullet with a knife and probe. Science should be able to discover a less barbaric method.” Bell used a metal detecting gadget but did not hear a signal that could guide the doctors.

Besides the arduous and painful hunt for the bullet, the fundamental problem with Bliss was that he knew nothing about bacteria and infections. Bliss chose to ignore the ground breaking discoveries and inventions of one of the greatest surgeons of all time, English Professor Joseph Lister ( 1827-1912). He studied at the University College of London and graduated from the Medical School in 1852. His father was a wine merchant, but was also interested in optics. He invented new lenses that improved the quality and magnification of the particles by eliminating what was called chromatic abberration. As a teenager, even before he entered the medical college in London, Joseph Lister was an expert in using the microscope.

Louis Pasture and other scientists had recognized the existence of bacteria and yeast. However, it was Lister who proved that microscopic bacilli were responsible for pus formation in open wounds and in the incisions after surgery. By conducting elaborate experiments, he demonstrated that by using carbolic acid (phenol), infections of the wounds could be prevented and contain their progression. He termed the process antisepsis and toured all over Europe demonstrating the efficacy of his new concepts.

His contemporaries in Europe, particularly in England, were initially not receptive but he was not discouraged. From 1865 onwards, respected British medical journals began to publish case reports of successful outcomes in patients treated by him. In addition, he demonstrated the efficacy of antisepsis to surgeons who flocked to Glasgow or Edinburgh to learn from him. In 1869, Dr. Saxtorph, Professor of Surgery at the University of Copenhagen, spent a few months in Glasgow viewing the procedures done by Lister. One year later, on July 18, 1870, he wrote the following letter to express his appreciation. ( 2 - Volume 2, Page 123-124)

“My dear Sir,
It is nearly a year since I left Glasgow, where I had the opportunity of seeing how the antiseptic treatment is to be carried out. Every surgeon who has seen the remarkable results of this treatment must feel it his duty to imitate you, and dress the wounds after your principles… I therefore, as soon as I came home, adopted your method,…” After writing a detailed description of the patients he treated, he concluded the letter “ I feel so indebted to you for what I have learnt from seeing you employing the antiseptic dressing, … and I am happy to say that I never tried any innovation which answered so admirably as this treatment of wounds. Believe me Sir, ever yours,
Saxtroph.

In 1875, Lister toured through France and Germany to propagate the antiseptic system. According to Professor Nuland, “… he was regarded as a god, almost, because he had changed surgery.”(5)

DR. JOSEPH LISTER’S AMERICAN TOUR

On May 10, 1876, President Ulysses Grant opened the U.S. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Among the many American inventions displayed were Remington’s typewriter, Alexander Graham Bell’s early model of telephone, and Thomas Edison’s automatic telegraph system.

The International Medical Congress invited medical pioneers from the United States and Europe to present the latest developments in medicine. Dr.Lister was invited to serve as the President of the Surgical Section. He began his American tour with lectures at the Expo. Addressing a gathering of several hundred doctors, he first thanked the American dentists for introducing anesthesia. Lister then explained the importance of hand hygiene, antisepsis using phenol spray before surgical procedures, and for dressing the wounds with antiseptic lotions.

Two surgeons who were working with Bliss were at that medical seminar in Philadelphia. One of them, Dr. Frank Hamilton was a Professor of Surgery at Bellevue Hospital in New York. They listened to Dr. Lister’s lectures and may have watched him demonstrate the antiseptic protocol in a person who had sustained a wound. But the two colleagues of Bliss were unconvinced.

Lister left Philadelphia feeling that his lectures did not impress the American doctors. Though disappointed, to continue the effort, with his wife, he travelled across the Rockies to San Francisco and returned to the east coast via Chicago. Before returning home, he stopped by in Boston at Harvard Medical School and at the prestigious Bellevue Hospital in New York. At the request of the faculty, he performed a procedure to drain a large abscess. It was reported to have been seen by a large number of students and practitioners.

Lister became a well known figure by the end of the trip. An enterprising businessman prepared phenol spray for preventing infections and marketed the product as Listerine in those days. It is now marketed as a zero alcohol mouth wash containing sodium fluoride.

Bliss provided daily updates of Garfield’s status to the journalists and by telegraphing to cities and towns. Crowds would gather around bulletin boards on which the information was shown. At one point, Garfield was well enough to eat and was given his favorite squirrel soup. After painting a bleak picture early on, Bliss’s narratives sounded optimistic until late August, but the reports were deceptive. In response to a question from a journalist he boasted, “if I can not cure him, nobody can.” However, doctors from far and near and even ordinary folks began to doubt the veracity of his pronouncements.

In less than a week after he was shot, Garfield started to spike fever with chills. When pus started to pour out of the wound, it was considered a good sign because the temperature would fall and the patients would look better temporarily. The doctors referred to it as “ healthy looking pus” and added “ we don’t regard this as unfavorable under the circumstances.”

From that point onwards, small and large abscesses sprouted in different parts of the body requiring incision and drainage or insertion of tubes to drain the pus. That was all done under unsanitary conditions. Ether or chloroform were used only when the surgeons had to make large incisions. He was given opium products orally or through hypodermic injections along with brandy or whiskey to keep him comfortable. As a result, he vomited frequently and could not handle any feedings. “Nutritive enemas containing beef bullion, egg yolks, milk , whiskey and several drops of opium…”, were started in early August. The doctors claimed that the rectal feedings were beneficial. By that time Garfield had lost substantial weight, down from around 225 to 135 pounds, but they claimed “ there is every reason to believe that this (enemas) saved the President from rapidly impending death.” (5)

Another omission was not recruiting trained nurses to be at the bedside. In Europe and America, Florence Nightingale was already famous as the “ lady with the lamp.” England and France supported the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War against Russia that lasted three years between 1853 to 1856. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), in 1854 , witnessed the pathetic condition of the soldiers with infected wounds lying helplessly in the army barracks. In 1860, upon returning home, Nightingale laid the foundation for establishing the first professional nursing school in England.

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, daughter of an English immigrant, was the first women to get accepted by an American medical college and the first American women to graduate with an M.D. degree. After graduation in 1849, she sailed to Paris to work as an apprentice in a hospital for practical bedside experience. Such training in a hospital was not yet established in the U.S. On a trip to England before the Crimean War, Dr. Blackwell had met Florence Nightingale and a few years later after she returned from the war. (1)

Dr. Blackwell had recognized the importance of hand hygiene and maintaining sanitary conditions during health care delivery. After returning home in 1857, she opened a private clinic, and later using a prototype designed by Nightingale, she also started a small nursing school in New York to educate a few women. In the American Civil War, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell played a significant role in organizing nursing care for the Union Army.

The first professional registered nursing school was opened in Philadelphia in 1873. By 1880, there were fifteen or so nursing schools. It should not have been difficult for Bliss to find trained nurses to care for Garfield, if he had considered it. Instead, Bliss requested wives of the cabinet members to take turns to provide nursing care at the bedside.

The negative feelings of allopaths towards homeopaths surfaced at that time. Several times when President Garfield and Crete had fallen ill, they were treated by homeopaths. Dr. Silas Boynton, was the first cousin of President Garfield on both sides. After Crete reached the White House, she sent a message to Boynton to come to the White House immediately. Crete considered another homeopath, Dr. Susan Edson, as her personal physician. The two homeopaths expressed concern about the overuse of whiskey and opium but Bliss ignored them. Dr. Edson was allowed to stay at the bedside, with the proviso that she should not get involved in medical management. She agreed to comply with that demand and sat at the bedside to do her best to keep Garfield comfortable. Dr. Boynton was allowed to stay, but mostly, he hung around outside the room listening to the discussions and arguments between the doctors.

In this context, it is relevant to point out that some Civil War veterans lived many years with bullets lodged in their bodies. President, Andrew Jackson, lived thirty-nine years with a bullet lodged in the left side of his chest. In a duel on May 30, 1806, the bullet grazed the lung, caused substantial bleeding and damaged some peripheral bronchial tubes. That caused bronchiectasis, a chronic dilatation of a segment of the bronchial tubes. From time to time, that segment would get infected and induce cough with purulent and bloody sputum, incapacitating Jackson for several days. It is a miracle that he survived nearly four decades, serving two terms as the president from 1829-1837. Bliss and his team, had they been aware of that history would have been less aggressive in their approach.

After reviewing the management based on the daily bulletins and autopsy findings, contemporary physicians concluded that by over treatment, Garfield was harmed. One respected German surgeon commented succinctly that the doctors “… did not do too little but too much.”

Bliss and six of his associates defended their management and accepted no responsibility. After a few months, Bliss and others submitted bills to the U.S. Congress for their services. That caused quite an outrage among some congressmen and lay persons. A special Congressional Appropriations Committee held public hearings. The honesty and integrity of the daily bulletins issued by Bliss and mismanagement were brought up in the hearings. Regardless of the tragic outcome, considering that the doctors had given their time, Congress approved a total of $ 27,000.00. Bliss had demanded $25,000.00 but was awarded $6500.00. Pathologist, Dr. Lamb who conducted the autopsy was given $ 1000.00. Dr. Boynton was given $4500. 00 that he sought, but Dr. Edson did not submit a bill.

Dr. Faneuil Weisse, Professor of Anatomy at New York Medical College deserves recognition for an interesting reason. He secured several corpses from the morgue and hung them on the branches of a tree. He fired bullets into the right lower back from a close range corresponding to the site where Garfield was shot. He dissected the corpses and located the site where those bullets landed. Bliss had concluded that the bullet had passed through Garfield’s back muscles and rested on the liver on the right side of the abdomen. Autopsy showed the bullet lodged in the left upper abdomen touching the surface of the spleen.

In a medical journal, one doctor quoted a stanza of an ode written by the English poet Thomas Gray (1716-1771).

“Where ignorance is bliss, it’s folly to be wisse.”

The word “Wisse,” was substituted for “wise” in the original poem. The last stanza of the above ode is below the bibliography.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD’S IMPACT ON HEALTH CARE

Directly or tangentially, President Garfield’s tragic death had an impact on American medicine. Listorian principles gained ground within a decade after Garfield’s death and were adopted universally. Those physicians who were dedicated to their profession kept up with the new developments to improve outcomes in surgery. Foremost among them was Dr. William Halstead, one of the greatest surgeon in history. After graduation from Columbia University affiliated medical college, Halstead interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York. American doctors who could afford the expense, travelled to France or Germany which were then the preeminent centers for medical research and training.

After spending several months in Europe, mainly in Germany, he returned to New York, and in 1880, Halstead opened private practice. He wanted to perform surgeries at the Bellevue Hospital implementing antiseptic principals but he faced resistance. Therefore, he raised $10,000.00 from friends and on the grounds of the hospital built a “antiseptic tent” to perform surgeries. Pertinence of this anecdote is that Dr. Hamilton, one of the surgeons who cared for Garfield, was a professor at Bellevue Hospital in 1881.

Aside from the innovations he brought to surgery, unrelated to Lister, Halstead invented surgical gloves. Antiseptic measures inhibit the growth and multiplication of microorganisms. The next step, “asepsis” aims to eliminate the bacteria, as in steam sterilization of instruments. Dr. Halstead and surgeons who believed in asepsis, after washing their hands, dipped them in a solution containing mercuric chloride for that purpose. One day he noted that the hands of a nurse, Carolyn Hampton, who assisted him regularly were beefy red. That provided an inspiration and incentive to invent synthetic gloves. After a few months of romancing, the surgeon and the nurse got married.

In short, Garfields tragic death opened the eyes of nonbelievers of antisepsis and in course of time protocols were developed to control infectious diseases in the hospitals.

Garfield’s management was entirely carried out by surgeons who had no insight into other aspects such as nutritional support and gastrointestinal issues. That exposed the limitation of general surgeons and family practitioners. In the years that followed, as a first step, the specialty of “Internal Medicine,” which deals with diseases of unseen internal organs amenable to treatments by drugs and non invasive procedures began to separate from surgery.

NURSING
An editorial in the Boston Medical Journal commented, “ The absence of trained and experienced nursing care at the bed side was brought into focus.” A few years after Garfield’s saga, the importance of nursing schools was recognized and a forum was held to develop national standards for organizing and administering it as a para medical profession.

HOMEOPATHY

The exclusion of homeopathic doctors by Bliss and conflict with them caught the attention of the Americans. In 1858, Hahnemann Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania ( HHMC) was established in Philadelphia. It was not attached to a hospital to begin with, and only men were accepted. Two years later, in 1850, Female Medical College of Pennsylvania was established and later changed to Women’s Medical College (WMC). Throughout history until mid- nineteenth century, general public believed that women did not possess the intellectual capacity and the ability to learn the skills to be a doctor. That was shared by the majority of allopathy doctors. WMC was the first school to grant a medical degree to a women to practice as a homeopath. In 1920, exclusive homeopathic training was discontinued and it began to operate as a traditional co-educational school attached to a hospital. HHMC and WMC eventually merged in 2002 and has since been operating under Drexel University College of Medicine.

There are no homeopathic medical colleges in U.S. now. There are official organizations that provide the educational requirements and for obtaining certification. Some hospitals have integrated homeopathy in their alternate medical therapeutic programs that include Acupuncture and ancient Indian Ayurvedic system that dates back to Vedic times around 1500 B.C.E.

Homeopathy is quite popular in some European countries, particularly in Germany and France. India has several government approved medical colleges and thousands of homeopaths who practice their system exclusively. Several million Indians receive care from homeopaths for chronic ailments. Few days ago, I spoke to two good friends who have been taking pills from homeopaths for a while. They turned to homeopaths when standard ( allopathic ) medications did not help and or caused side effects. The positive response my friends reported did not sound to me to be a placebo effect.

This narrative in essence addressed only infections pertaining to wounds. That was before we knew of the existence of viruses. We have countless more to deal with now. I will conclude with brief note about infectious diseases in our times. According to the a review article listed below (3), “ In the United States, health care associated infections are detected in 1 in 31 hospitalized patients and result in 72,000 deaths… per year.” Federal government requires hospitals to maintain records of ( only )six categories of infections. This approach results in many serious infections going unnoticed.”

Hospitals spend enormous amount of time and funds to prevent infections and control their spread. Nurses and ancillary staff play a major role in this effort and deserve to be complemented. They are often given the uncomfortable task of reminding the doctors to follow established infection control protocols such as thorough hand wishing between patient visits and wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when needed. That was a problem even before the Covid pandemic.

Bibliography:
The information for this narrative was gathered from the books listed in the two previous essays. Additional sources are listed below.

1. Campbell, Olivia: Women in White Coats, Park Row Books, 2021. ( All but one medical colleges refused to admit her as a student. Geneva Medical College in Syracuse agreed to accept her finally only if all the male students approved. The students approved assuming that it was joke. She stood first in the class when she graduated in 1849). Yale Medical College did not accept women until 1916 and Harvard until early 1940’s).

2. Lister, Joseph’s Collected Papers in two volumes: Classics of Medicine Library, Special Edition, Original, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 2016.

3. Manzoor, F et al: Advancing surveillance of health-care associated infections: New England journal of Medicine, ( NEJM) ,Volume: 393, October 11, 2025.

4. Nuland, Sherwin: Doctors: The History of Medicine Revealed Through Biography: The Teaching Company, 2005.

5. Ira Rutkow : James Garfield, The American Presidents, Henry Colt and Company, N.Y. 2006. In this well researched book , Mr.Rurkow outlined the care provided by the doctors in detail.

6. Waite, Fredrick: New England Journal of Medicine, Vol :207, 30-33, 1932.

The 10th and last stanza of Thomas Gray’s poem the “ Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College.”

To each his sufferings: all her men

Condemn’d alike to groan,

The tender for another’s pain;

Th’ unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah ! Why should they know their fate?

Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies

Thought would destroy their paradise.

No more; Where ignorance is bliss,

‘Ts folly to be wise.

“The longer I live, the more faith I have in providence and less faith in my interpretation of Providence.” - Jeremiah Day (1773 - 1867), 9th President of Yale College.

In Part 1 of the essay under the above heading , the life of James Garfield was presented up to the time of his nomination by the Republican Party in 1880. He is the only U.S. Congressman in history to win the presidency without holding any other elected office. Earlier, Ohio had already elected him to be the U.S. Senator starting in 1881, as he had not expressed any desire to seek the party’s nomination. Had he not won the presidency, he would have been in the senate chamber instead of the White House. This essay covers the political campaign and Garfield’s brief presidency.

In 1876, Garfield had purchased a house in Mentor, Ohio, a small town located about twenty miles from the log cabin where he was born. The house was nestled in a vast one hundred acres of woods and farmland. The area around the house had been partially cleared to create sprawling lawns around the house. With a loan, he had also built a small house in Washington but he enjoyed being home in Mentor with his wife Crete, and five surviving children. Their marriage was rocky from the start due to James Garfield’s poor judgement and infidelity, partly related to him being away from home during the Civil War and serving in the Congress. After their first born child, a daughter affectionately named Trot died in infancy in 1863, they drew closer and were happy and genuinely devoted to each other.

Before launching the campaign, Garfield went home for a respite, but well-wishers from nearby towns and across the country swarmed the lawns. Journalists and visitors from all walks of life poured into Mentor throughout the campaign. One newspaper appropriately named the home “Lawnfield.”

On June 11, 1880, about six hundred miles away, a steam ship named Stonington, collided with another one in the Long Island Sound on a pitch-dark foggy night resulting in catastrophic damage to the ship and loss of life. From that carnage, one thirty-nine-year-old man, Charles Guiteau, escaped unharmed. A passionate Republican, he was a staunch supporter of Grant. He called himself “stalwart of the stalwarts,” but when Garfield won the nomination, he threw his support to Garfield. He was a member of Unitary Community, a short lived minor Christian religious cult. Walking out of the inferno, Guiteau believed that “He was chosen by God for a task of tremendous importance.”

It is reminiscent of how Garfield himself felt when he survived near- drowning in the Erie Canal. Whereas Garfield allowed destiny to play out without dwelling on it or imposing his “interpretation of destiny,” Guiteau strove relentlessly to make his belief become a reality. In his mind, ideas floated that he could play a significant role in the election campaign. Confident that Garfield would win, Guiteau even envisioned a place in the new administration.

President Hays, his predecessor, advised Garfield to stay put at home and not to travel around campaigning in person. Garfield accepted that recommendation, but there was immense pressure from a section of his supporters that he should meet Senator Conkling to appease the stalwart leader. The Democrats and Republican detractors had derisively labeled the senator as Lord Conkling. Garfield felt that “It is an unreasonable demand that so much effort should be made to conciliate with one man.” However, recognizing that New York state was essential to win the presidency and also for uniting the party, Garfield headed to New York by train.

As the train coursed along Lake Erie, Ohio Canal, and Buffalo, it stopped at several towns to allow Garfield to address the crowds gathered at the railway stations. On the way, Chester Arthur, his running mate and two future Republican Presidents, Benjamin Harrison and Congressman William Mckinley, boarded the train and delivered short speeches at a few stops.

Before leaving Cleveland, Garfield had sent a message to Senator Blain to meet him in New York. After he arrived, Garfield was escorted by security personnel to the 5th Avenue Hotel in Manhattan. Blain was in the hotel lobby, but Conklin deliberately did not show up. Instead, he assigned ex-congressman and future U.S. Senator Thomas Platt to lead the negotiations on behalf of the stalwarts. Chester Arthur, who lived in an apartment on Lexington Avenue attended the meeting but was a silent spectator.

Garfield emerged from the discussions believing that all he had agreed to “was to give them a voice,” and nothing more. On the other hand, based on Platt’s report, Lord Conkling assumed that Garfield would seek his counsel in selecting members to the cabinet and give him full authority to appoint federal posts in his New York fiefdom. The unwritten agreement termed “5th Avenue Treaty” provided an incentive to the stalwart faction to campaign for Garfield. A few weeks later, President Grant and Conkling showed up in Warren, Ohio, to address a rally and then visit Lawnfield.

After visiting the Empire State, Garfield retreated to Lawnfield to conduct what was later coined a “front porch” campaign. The Democratic nominee, Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania (1824-1886), had served with distinction as a general in the Civil War, particularly at Gettysburg.

In all campaigns, opponents look for real, misconstrued or fake data to tarnish the image of their rival. Democrats did not have to search much to find information to smear Garfield. The administration of President Grant was marred by corruption. Garfield, then a U.S Congressman, became wrapped up in a financial scandal with Credit Mobilier, a company assigned to build the Union Pacific Rail Line. That company paid $329.00 to gain favor from him. Though a special Congressional committee did not consider it a bribe and absolved him of corruption, his image was soiled. Democrats utilized “329” as a moniker on campaign paraphernalia. A letter simulating Garfield’s handwriting was published by a newspaper in October stating that Garfield favored bringing in an unlimited number of Chinese to work on the railroads. When it was exposed to be a forgery, it had a negative impact on the Democrats.

General Hancock was recognized as a war hero but had no other distinct attributes. As he was overweight, the Republicans painted him as someone “who did nothing but eat, drink and enjoy himself sensually.” However, he was respected for being a “good man… with a record as stainless as his sword.” In the battle between the two Generals, thanks to New York and Indiana, the Ohioan prevailed with a slim margin of less than ten thousand popular votes but with an electoral votes margin of 59. Mending fences with Conkling and stalwarts had paid dividends.

Selecting cabinet members to serve in his administration preoccupied much of Garfield’s time until inauguration on March 4,1881. Conkling waited in the wings expecting an invitation from the President for selecting his cabinet, but he did not receive it. Garfield’s first and most important selection was that of Senator Blain to run the State Department. Though Garfield and Blain were not always on the same page in the U.S. Congress, the two got along well overall. Blaine had become a trusted confidant after the convention and warned him that offering Conkling a cabinet post would be like poisoning oneself with strychnine.

Instructed by Conkling, a banker named Levi Morton informed Garfield that he would serve as the Secretary of the Treasury. Garfield, peeved by such insolence, ignored him. To placate the stalwarts, Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son, was made the Secretary of War. A bewildering choice was that of William Hunt of Louisiana, an ex-confederate to be the Secretary of Navy. Other important cabinet positions were selected based on their merit from both factions but not entirely. A friend from Hiram Institute, another from his time in the army were included in the administration. Those appointments disappointed the reform minded opponents of the patronage system.

PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION AND PRESIDENCY

On March 4, 1881, Washington’s streets were covered with several inches of snow. It was sunny but quite cold with intermittent gales and snow flurries. American flags with thirty-eight stars representing the number of states in the Union were wet and sat crumpled against the flag poles. In addition, thirty-eight iron arches were set up on Pennsylvania Avenue under which President Garfield rode in a four- horse drawn carriage. (An act passed by the U.S. Congress in April 1818, set the number of stripes on the flag to be thirteen and one star for each state). It was estimated to have been the largest crowd assembled for the inauguration ceremony of a president till that time.

The U.S. Marshall of the District of Columbia was given the honor to serve as master of ceremonies at the capitol hill on the inauguration day. Five years earlier, President Hays had appointed Frederick Douglass as Marshall; he was the first colored man to hold that post. He led the outgoing and incoming presidents from the Senate Chamber onto the front of the Capitol building for the presidential oath and delivery of the inaugural address.

Job seekers continued to plague Garfield for several weeks after he entered the White House. Conkling felt humiliated by Garfield’s rejection of his protege, Levi Morton, for the Treasury and Blain’s appointment to head the State Department. On a Sunday, towards the end of March, Conkling walked into the White House and spent three hours reminding the president that he was entitled to select federal posts in New York as per the 5th Avenue Hotel Treaty. He left after submitting a long list of persons he believed ought to be appointed. The most important job was that of the Collector of New York Customs. At that office, over 70% of the nation’s customs duty was collected. Conkling had appointed his protege, Chester Arthur to that post during Grant’s presidency.

President Hayes, who had succeeded Grant, removed Arthur from that lucrative job and replaced him with a well-respected reform-minded Republican. Garfield wrote that it is “impossible for a man in his position to please all factions or to keep everybody his friend.” Realizing that yielding to Conkling would undermine executive authority in federal appointments, he stuck to his decision. He wrote a note to himself, “The President is authorized to nominate and I did so. A Senator considers it a personal affront that he was not previously told. I stand joyfully on that issue - let who will, fight me.”

Hoping to satisfy the stalwarts, he appointed quite a few from that faction, but notably not that of customs collector of New York. He appointed Republican William Robertson, who did not belong to either faction and had not yield to Conklin’s pressure to join the stalwarts. Battle lines were drawn. One newspaper dubbed it, the “Battle of the Roses.” Conkling, furious at that insult, vowed publicly that he would block William Robertson’s confirmation in the Senate.

To demonstrate his commitment to racial justice, Garfield appointed a few Black Americans to federal posts. A former senator from Mississippi and a former congressman were given posts in the Treasury Department. Frederick Douglass, an intellectual and a brilliant author, wrote in his autobiography that he was invited to the White House “to talk over matters pertaining to the cause of my people.” In the presence of the Secretary of State, Garfield bemoaned the fact that no Black American had been appointed as a diplomat to a “white nation.”

Amidst the melodrama that unfolded in the first few weeks, the early cabinet meetings were not well attended by the members. By the end of June, the meetings began to take shape to the president’s satisfaction. The meetings were deliberately kept brief. According to Blaine, the president took decisions quickly, “when all had been heard, and that “he was satisfied with the “harmony.” Garfield instructed the secretaries to oversee their own departments and handle the job hunters as they deemed fit. Charles Guiteau, the stalwart of stalwarts, convinced that he deserved to be the ambassador to France, pestered Blaine the most. In that era, any person could walk in and out of the White House. One day he ran into President Garfield and gave a paper with a scribble, “Paris Consulate.” During an event at the White House, he managed to greet the First Lady and told her that he “ helped elect her husband.”

The president’s mother Eliza, Crete, and their five children felt at home in the White House. Grandma Garfield was enjoying her celebrity status and pleased that her son was taking care of her, keeping a promise he had made years ago. Eliza along with her son, Crete, and children attended service at the Disciples of Christ Church on Sundays. This joy and tranquility, however, was interrupted in early May. Crete was seriously ill due to malaria and close to death. Garfield nursed her with utmost care, often spending sleepless nights at her bedside. Though she recovered from the illness in four weeks, she was too weak to take over the functions of a First Lady. For her recuperation, he took her to Elberon, in New Jersey in mid-June. Garfield had the secretaries of the departments accompany him and conducted a few cabinet meetings in that ses side retreat. Rejuvenated, a happy president returned to the White House at the end of June, leaving Crete to recuperate further.

ECSTASY AND AGONY JULY 2, 1881 - SEPTEMBER 15, 1881

By late June, Garfield was ebullient as his beloved wife was regaining her health. With clever maneuvering and by appealing to some senators, he got the Senate to confirm William Robertson’s appointment to the New York customs office, overcoming Lord Conkling in the Battle of the Roses. Garfield finally believed that his administration was moving forward in the right direction. He attended the graduation ceremony of law students at Howard University and was particularly pleased to present the diploma to a graduate who happened to be his barber. He was convinced that education would facilitate advancement of African Americans.

On July 2, 1881, he decided to attend the class reunion at his alma mater, Williams College with his two teenage sons. Secretary of State Blaine came in a coach and brought them to the train station which was just six blocks from the White House. Crete was to join the family at the college. The ecstatic mood suddenly morphed into another American tragedy. A lone gunman shot Garfield twice with a revolver. Blaine, who was behind the wounded president, recognized that the gunman was Charles Guiteau. The first shot went through the right arm coat and caused a minor wound on the hand, but the second bullet entered through the right side of his back and lodged somewhere deep in the lower thorax. Guiteau was apprehended immediately. He was heard saying clearly, “ I did it and will go to jail for it. I am a stalwart and Arthur will be the president.”

Garfield collapsed on the platform with his two teenage sons in tears and Blaine hovering over the president to shield him from the crowd. Within a few minutes, Dr. Smith Townsend arrived and found Garfield barely conscious with a weak pulse. The doctor had someone obtain brandy and aromatic ammonia spirit, mixed them, and made him swallow the concoction. In response to a question by Garfield about the injury, Dr. Townsend said that it was not fatal, but Garfield did not believe him. Shaking his head he said, “Thank you doctor, but I am a dead man.”

Next, Dr. Willard Bliss, Chief Surgeon to the Armory Hospital in Washington was summoned. He too explored the wound with his fingers to locate the bullet but was unsuccessful. After a few hours, Garfield was transported to the White House on a coach, and placed in a room on the second floor where he would be treated for the next ten weeks. Dr.Bliss appointed himself as the physician in charge. Before leaving the train station, Garfield managed to have an aide send a telegraphic message to his wife that he was “seriously hurt.”

Crete was at the seaside in Elberon when the news reached her. When she came out to meet the messenger, Ulysses Grant was standing at the door. Several months earlier, he had moved to a lodge nearby but had not made an effort to meet the first family when he came across them on the beach. Convinced that the president was controlled by Conklin’s foe Baine, he wrote an accusatory note to Garfield implying that he was “giving the Administration over to the settlement of other people’s private grievances.” Grant also told a reporter that “Garfield was a man without backbone.” On that morning, understandably, he was shaken and must have repented his prior statements about Garfield. With teary eyes, desiring to instill some hope, Grant told Crete that “he had seen weaker men survive worse.”

The Pullman train that Crete boarded to get to Washington broke down about twenty miles from the White House. Miraculously, the train did not crash or derail, but had to sit in the car for five agonizing hours. Reaching his bed side late that evening, he told him, “ I am here to nurse you back to life. Please do not speak again of death.” It was initially believed by those around the ailing president that he would not survive long.

Americans were stunned to hear that President Garfield had been shot. Most believed that he had either died or would soon succumb to the wounds. Two days later, on July 4, Independence Day, one speaker in a New York crowd said, “It is not James Garfield that lies gasping for breath. It is the American people.”

Over the ten weeks after the tragic event, twelve doctors were involved under what was felt to be the autocratic supervision of Dr. Bliss. Most physicians who belonged to his generation went along with his decisions, and any suggestions contrary to his opinion were overruled.

The summer heat was unbearable in Washington and the odor from the swamps around the White House was suffocating. On top of that, Dr. Bliss ordered curtains to cover the windows, making Garfield’s room dark and blocking the view of the city. To cool the air, a sort of an early precursor to an air conditioner was improvised. Air was blown through ice packed in bags and then blown into the room through tin pipes. Those efforts did not alter the environment or relieve the discomfort.

To get a breath of fresh air and have a view of the sea, Garfield requested that he be moved to Elberon. By a special train, on September 5 , he was transported to the second floor balcony of a cottage. For two weeks, enjoying the ocean view and refreshing cool breeze provided some comfort. On September 19, at 10:00 in the night, complaining of severe pain and pointing to his chest, Garfield called out an old friend “Swaim, what a pain I have right here.” Dr. Bliss, who was present at the time, witnessed the president lapse into a coma. Crete had just stepped out briefly, and when she walked in the room again, the doctor told her, “Madame, he is dying.”

LEGACY OF JAMES GARFIELD

On September 18, one day before he died, he summoned another close friend, Almond Rockwell and asked him, “Do you think I will have a place in history?” Rockwell replied, “ Yes, a grand one, but a grander one in human hearts. You must not talk that way. You have a great work to perform. After a brief silence, Garfield said, “ My work is done.”

James Garfield’s presidential tenure was too short to give him a place in American history. In Congress, he was versatile and was the minority leader for a term. He was resposible for establishing the Department of Education ( later changed to Bureau), and the U. S. Geological Survey. His passionate advocacy of justice for the African Americans, could have borne fruit if he had served even one term in the White House. The presidents who succeeded Lincoln, had been playing a passive role allowing the Congress to dominate the polices. By asserting presidential authority and extinguishing the power of the Stalwart faction and Conklin, he not only succeeded in uniting the Republican Party, but took a step towards regaining the prestige and power of the president.

President Chester Arthur had benefited enormously when he was the customs collector in New York. That was the position bestowed on him by Lord Conkling. Therefore, though he was the Vice-President, he remained loyal to Conklin and did not act as Garfield’s partner. That changed after he stepped into the White House. Recognizing the evils of patronage in federal appointments, he played a leading role in passing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform in 1883. That action, in a way was an expression of regret and paying homage to President Garfield.

The authors listed in the bibliography point out his shortcomings in personal life and as a Congressman. He was certainly a man with many contradictions. He was a kind man but hurt Crete from time to time. Several presidents who preceded and followed Garfield had far more blemishes. Overall, after reading the listed books and more, in my opinion, James Garfield was not a minor inconsequential American leader. Yet, he is unknown to most Americans and not given much attention by the historians. I have to confess that until a few years ago I too was one of the uninformed Americans. In Southern California, for over two decades, countless times, I drove on Garfield Avenue in Huntington, but did not know that it was named in honor of the former President until a few years ago. Popular cartoon character, Flabby Tabby Garfield the Cat is probably better known.

The

Bibliography:

1. Brinkley, Alan & Dyer, Davis : The Readers’s Companion To The American Presidency. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

2 .Douglass, Frederick : Life and Time of Frederick Douglass, Oxford World’s Classics. University Press, 2022. ( Autobiography).

3.Goodyear, C.W : President Garfield, From Radical to Unifier, Simon and Schuster, 2023.

4.Moses, John B, M.D & Wilbur Cross : Presidential Courage, W.W.Norton, N.Y. 1980.

5. Ira Rutkow : James Garfield, The American Presidents, Henry Colt and Company, N.Y. 2006

“ Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

On March 1, 1803, Ohio became the seventeenth state during the first term of President Thomas Jefferson. The vast area north west of Ohio River was the first post - colonial land that was organized into a territory in 1787, and incorporated as Northwestern Territory. Cuyahoga County was established in the land on the southern shore of Lake Erie, and along Ohio and Cuyahoga Rivers. The county was bisected by the Cuyahoga River which in Iroquoian means crooked river and Ohio means good river. Pioneers from other colonies began to migrate to the territory in the early nineteenth century.

In 1848, a sixteen year old youngster, who was living with his widowed mother and three older siblings, decided to seek a new life as a sailor on a ship at the Cleveland port. He was unable to get a job on the ship, so settled for low- level jobs on boats on the Erie and Ohio River Canals. His mother, Eliza was heartbroken as she had hoped that her youngest son would pursue higher education beyond the parochial school he was attending.

The work on the boat was difficult. To start with, he had to serve both as a driver and handyman. While struggling late one night with a long coiled rope on the bow, that young man fell into the lake. Surprisingly, for one dreaming of a future on the water, he had not learned to swim and nearly drowned. Fortuitously, he managed to clasp a part of the rope and climbed onto the boat. When he examined the rope he observed that it was not securely tied to any structure, yet his weight did not drag him down. Further scrutiny revealed that the broken rope was entrapped in a large wooden crevice. He wondered "why was I saved”?

He meditated on the incident for sometime and arrived at the understanding that God must have saved him for his mother’s sake. He surmised, “ Providence only could have saved my life. Providence therefore, thinks it worth saving.”

He eventually returned home, weak and debilitated with dysentery and high fever thought to be due to malaria. When he walked into the house, he saw his mother praying, uttering his name. The illness was ebbing him close to death, when destiny smiled on him again. In a few weeks, with the loving care of Eliza, his health was restored. To survive, she was forced to sell most of the land to clear debts, and with her older sons, she laboured on the neighbors farms. Despite those hardships, she managed to save some money for her son to pursue higher education.

It was then that the young man said to himself, “I am resolved to make a mark in the world…. There is some slumbering thunder in my soul and it shall come out.”

Thirty-two years later, in 1880, he made the mark: James A. Garfield was elected as the twentieth President of the United States. Throughout the ages and across the world, numerous persons overcame abject poverty and enormous hardships to reach great heights. The trajectory of Garfield’s life from humble circumstances to the White House is an exceptional American story. The following narrative is a brief outline of Garfield’s voyage.

The Early Years

“Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. And some have greatness thrust upon them.”

From Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night: Or What You Will.” *( The second and third phrases apply to President Garfield).

Abraham Garfield and his half brother Amos, moved from New York to Ohio in 1819. The brothers married two sisters, Eliza and Alpha Ballou, who had been raised in New England. After a few years working on the Erie Canal, the brothers bought one hundred acres of wooded land hoping to clear part of it for farming. Abe Garfield built a simple log cabin which provided no more than a roof, exposed half the year to harsh weather. In that cabin, the fourth and the youngest child, James Garfild was born on November 18, 1831. He was the last President to be born in a log cabin.

In 1833, when James was a year and a half old, Abe Garfeld died, leaving Eliza to raise the family. To survive, she was forced to sell most of the land to clear the debts. Thomas, his oldest brother, laboured on the farm with his mother while James, attending a parochial school, helped her mother with other tasks. Eliza and Thomas resolved that , “Whatever else happens, James must go to school.”

After the misadventure on the boat, Garfield studied at Geauga, a local coeducational seminary. Following that, he was admitted to a preparatory school, Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, in Hiram, Ohio. (Later named Hiram’s College). That institute was affiliated with “ Disciple of Christ,” a protestant church associated with Christian Restoration Movement.

Working as a janitor, hauling wood and performing labor- intensive tasks, he saved enough money to pursue higher studies at a college. A voracious reader, he immersed himself in books with the sparse time he could find between the jobs. After just one year as a student, he was promoted to be a teacher at the same institute. Aware that colleges in New England were the temples of higher learning, in 1854, he entered Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Garfield graduated with honors and also earned a degree in law. He excelled in elocution and evolved into a powerful speaker. It dawned on him then that “ he had extraordinary talent,” and wrote “ I am resolved to make a mark on the world.”

A degree from a prestigious eastern college enhanced his academic standing back home. Hiram’s College, appointed him as a Professor of Ancient Languages and Literature in 1855, when he was twenty-four years old and the following year was chosen to serve as the President of the College with five members on the faculty.

As the above events unfolded, understandably, Garfield’s faith in God and Christ took shape. He joined the Disciple of Christ, and preached regularly with an evangelical fervor. According to a friend, “ he delivered sermons in a melodic clear voice…. He made the faithful feel as if they had been transplanted away from the earth to some tranquil, beautiful region of heaven.”

At this point In the nineteenth century, debates in the political and other disciplines were popular, attracting large audiences. Charles Darwin’s ground breaking book,“ The Origin of Species” was published in November 1859. One year before Darwin published that book, William Denton, a thirty-seven year old English scholar proclaimed that “Man, animals and vegetables came into existence by the laws of spontaneous generation and progressive development and there was never any exercise of directive creative power on this planet.” Denton, touring in America in 1858, invited Christian theologians to debate him on that proclamation. Garfield accepted Denton’s challenge, and prepared meticulously for the debates which were held over five days in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. It was reported that the hall was packed to the brim with one thousand people. Denton had debated with forty men prior to that and apparently conceded that Garfield was “his strongest opponent to date.”(1) However, Denton, specifically addressing those debates, wrote a book discounting that Garfield made a strong case opposing evolution and supporting creationism. (3) Denton’s book would not have received much attention. Garfield made a great impression on the audience and the word spread across the state. To capitalize on that success, he toured the state delivering lectures under the title, “Geology and Religion.”

The same year, on November 18, 1858, he married Lucretia, daughter of Zeb Rudolph, one of the founding members of Hiram College. The couple were students at Geauga seminary and Hiram college and had known each other for close to a decade. He affectionately called her Creta and Americans adopted that name.

Entry into the Political Arena and Military Service.

Lawyer, Professor, and Evangelist James Garfield had become a well known figure in the state after the debates and lecture tours. In 1859, the death of a Republican nominee for Ohio Senate, opened the door for Garfield’s entry into politics. His friends encouraged him to seek the nomination and he won the seat in the general election and served two years in the state senate. Prior to that he does not seem to have expressed an overt desire to enter politics, but sooner or later, with his credentials, such a thought would have entered his mind.

Election to the United States Congress

In September 1861, the Republican Party leaders in Ohio were searching for a candidate to represent the 19th Congressional District. Though Garfield did not actively canvas to obtain the nomination, and was not present during the deliberations, he gave his consent with the caveat that, if elected, he would continue to serve in the military before taking up the position on the Capitol Hill. He won the November election with a comfortable margin. For eighteen years from 1862 to 1880, he served in the Congress continuously, except during the time he was on the battlefield.

When the country was engulfed in the Civil War, his patriotic spirit and opposition to slavery propelled him to join the Union Army. In those times, the state governors had the authority to appoint military officers.

Early in 1861, when Fort Sumter was shelled by the Confederates, Garfield volunteered to serve in the army. The Ohio Governor commissioned him to be a Lt. Colonel initially, and shortly thereafter a Colonel. The primary responsibility of the appointed officers was to recruit volunteers and train them to be combatants. Thus was created the 42nd Ohio Volunteer Division, which was called into service when the Confederate Army invaded Louisville, Kentucky. In that operation, named the Battle of Middle Creek, Garfield demonstrated his mettle by outmaneuvering the opponent and driving them out. That victory enhanced his status further and elevated him to Brigadier General.

Shortly after that battle, he fell ill and had to be furloughed home for a few weeks. His wife Creta nursed him back to health. Brigadier General Garfield was then given the command of the 20th Brigade of the Ohio Army. In early 1862, the Brigade confronted the Confederate Troops in Corinth, Mississippi; in what was later named the Battle of Shiloh, the Union Army prevailed, adding another feather to his cap. After another successful engagement in a battle in September 1863, Garfield was promoted to Major General. Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, summoned him to Washington to discuss plans for his return to the war front. In September 1863, he was appointed to serve as the Chief of Staff for General William Rosecrans. In that capacity, he played a significant role in the Battle of Chickamauga, but major differences between the two strained their relationship. General Ulyses Grant dismissed Rosecrans and replaced him with General George Thomas. Garfield had a strong conviction that he should be on the war front and sought a meeting with President Lincoln. At that meeting, Lincoln advised him that his service in the U.S. Congress would be more beneficial. That ended his military career.

Republican Party Convention in Chicago, 1880

President Rutherford Hays, the incumbent, in 1880, chose not to seek reelection. The Republican leaders had two factions, Stalwarts and Half-Breeds, with diverging political views. To complicate matters, bitter personal animosities and the fight for control of the party were in play. Two issues were the primary sources for their rivalary. One was post-war reconstruction of the southern states, and the second was reforming and replacing the prevailing “spoils” system with a merit based system for appointing federal government jobs. The Stalwarts, claiming to be conservative opposed both the issues whereas the Half- Breeds presenting themselves as moderate were strong proponents.

The leader of Stalwarts was Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who had derived substantial power and influence through the spoils system from President Ulysses Grant, the hero of the Union Army during the Civil War. Grant had already served two terms as the U.S. President from 1869 to 1877. Although Grant’s presidency was rocked by corruption and he had earned a bad reputation, Senator Conkling and Stalwarts persuaded Grant to run for a third term. Most Americans still remembered him as a hero and Conkling was confident that Grant could win the nomination easily. Grant had won the nomination in 1868and 1876 on the first ballot.

Two prominent Half-Breed’s sought the nomination; James Blain, U.S. Senator from Maine who was once a Speaker of the House and John Sherman, Secretary of Treasury and brother of highly respected General William Tecumesh Sherman. There were other lesser known persons on the ballot. Garfield and the majority of Half- Breeds favoured Blaine. John Sherman, aware of Garfield’s popularity, requested him to nominate him at the convention. It was a calculated move to prevent Garfield from entering the fray.

In that era, nominees were not elected through contests in state primaries as it is in vogue today. Contests in the state primaries became the conventional practice starting in 1976. Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Georgia, unknown beyond his state, prevailed in the Democratic Party and President Gerald Ford survived a challenge by Ronald Reagen in the Republican Party.

In 1880, each state sent their delegates to vote at the convention with or without specific instructions. Each delegate was free to vote for the candidate of their choice. To clinch the nomination, a candidate had to secure over 50% votes in the first ballot. That could take any number of days enabling candidates, their supporters, and party bosses for politicking. The Democratic Convention of 1860, for example, was dead locked until Stephen Douglas was nominated on the fifty-ninth ballot.

June 6th, 1880 was the fourth day of the convention. Senator Conkling gave a powerful speech nominating Grant. It was close to midnight, when James Garfield, delivered a passionate and inspiring speech to nominate fellow Ohioan, U.S.Senator John S. Sherman. The speech was well received with thunderous applause.

The convention was not held on Sunday to observe the Christian sabbath. Tension and suspense continued into Monday the 8th. To secure the nomination, the candidate had to get 379 ballots. On the first ballot, Grant got 304, Blaine 284 and Sherman 93 and the rest got 74. Sherman withdrew his candidacy on the second day of balloting and requested his supporters to vote for Garfield. Neither Blaine or Grant could get the majority.

On the 34th ballot, only seventeen votes were cast for Garfield. Then, destiny turned the tide towards Garfield. On the thirty-sixth ballot, the delegates from Maine abandoned favorite son Blain and voted for Garfield. Delegates from one state after another cast their votes in favor of Garfield, ignoring his protests. Senator Conkling, realizing that Grant would not get the nomination, made the motion to nominate Garfield. To placate Conkling, the convention selected his protege and former Customhouse director, Chester Arthur of New York, as the Vice-Presidential candidate. Thus ended the melodramatic stormy convention.
President-elect James Garfield called the presidency a “ Bleak Mountain,” and added, “ The honor comes to me unsought. I have never had the Presidential Fever; not even for a day.”

When a delegate from Maine congratulated him, he responded, “I am sorry that this has become necessary.”

The presidential campaign, highlights of Garfield’s short lived presidency and final days ,hours and words will be presented in Part 2 under the same heading.

Bibliography:

1. The American Heritage: Pictorial History of the Presidents of American Heritage. Published by American Heritage Publishing Company. Distributed by Simon and Schuster (1968).

2. Brinkley Alan and Dyer Davis: The Readers Companion to the American Presidency, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

3. Denton, William: Is Darwin Right? : Or The Origin of Man: Publication Date, 1881.

4. Millard Candice: Destiny of the Republic, Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Vintage Books, 2012. ( Most of the quotes were taken from this book. It is mentioned that President Garfield wrote in a diary for over twenty five years. In this book, many of his musings are quoted. I could not find those writings for this narrative) .

5. Moses, John, M.D and Wilbur Cross: Presidential Courage, W.W.Norton, New York, 1980.

* The quote is from Act, Scene IV Shakespeare’ s comedy, Twelfth Night: Or What You Will. Lady Olivia is the central character in the drama. Maria is her aide and Malvolio her steward. It is a humorous scene that depicts the dialogues between Malvolio and Olivia. The phrases about “greatness” are in a fake love letter written by Maria to Malvoliio.

“Our life exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermon in stones, and good in everything.” —Shakespeare.

Warm welcome to the visitors. In this digital and AI era, the universe is at the fingertips of the readers. Considering the vast number of blogs and podcasts available covering a wide range of topics, I sincerely appreciate visiting the site. I have strived to come up with informative essays, hoping readers with diverse backgrounds will find at least a few topics interesting. Each “Essay Seed” can be viewed as a point of reference for the readers to select a topic that seems interesting and worthy of studying further.

A few words about my back ground, going back to my school days. My primary and elementary school education was in my mother tongue Telugu, one of the four south Indian languages. Including English, Telugu, is one of the twenty-two languages officially recognized by the Indian Constitution.

A serendipitous event landed me in Hyderabad Public School (HPS), a private boarding school akin to British Public Schools with English as the medium of instruction. I still remember that day in June 1959, when I drove into the vast eye-popping school campus with an uncle to admit a new student to the primary school. Last year, after I left the school in 1962, I connected with that student, a retired Marine Engineer. But for that incident which led to those three years in HPS, I would not have attained the proficiency to write even these simple essays.

After graduating from Gandhi Medical College in Hyderabad, India, I came to the United States in 1971, and began my career as an intern at Citizens Hospital in Barberton, Ohio. As a medical practitioner, I meandered through different parts of the country and eventually landed in Southern California. In April 2017, after thirty-five years of practicing medicine in Southern California, I retired and moved to San Francisco. My practice primarily catered to pulmonary patients in the office and hospitals, but regularly, I would be involved with patients in the intensive care units as well.

Over the years, when I came across absorbing anecdotes in newspapers, magazines, or books, I wrote them down in notebooks without forethought of utilizing those scribbles at a future date. The notes were short and covered a variety of subjects. With ample time at my disposal, I browsed through those scrapbooks, studied further, and accessed Wikipedia and numerous other sources to gather information. The narratives are intended for general readers. Though I emigrated to U.S. five decades ago, I kept in touch with family and friends. With that in mind, and to reach overseas Indian diaspora, a few essays are Indian centric, but linked to U.S. or world events.

Your feedback through Substack would be much appreciated and guide my choice of topics. New essays will be published periodically and can be delivered to the email account of the readers directly if desired.

March 4th 1841, was one of the coldest day of that winter, rain and wind adding to the misery. Crowds gathered in Washington to celebrate the inauguration of President-Elect William Henry Harrison. In that era, the inauguration took place every four years in the first week of March on the 4th. If that day fell on a Sunday, the inauguration was postponed to the following Monday.

Inexplicably, in such inclement wether, the President delivered the inaugural address without wearing a coat, hat or gloves. He rode a horse instead of coursing in a carriage. Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, renowned scholar and orator, to spare the time for the president- elect, graciously, had prepared an inaugural address. Harrison refused stating that people would recognize that it was penned by the Senator. He agreed to have the speech edited by Webster but it was still far too long - the address lasted an hour and forty minutes. (2)

After the address, he walked around for a while and got drenched in the rain. On March 26, 1841, he was afflicted with acute pneumonia. Despite valiant efforts by by physicians he passed away on April 4, 1841, exactly a month after he entered the White House. The final words of President Harrison were heard by Dr. N.W. Worthington and his aid Mr. Samuel D.Naughton.

“Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more”.

Those words were meant for the Vice-President John Tyler, who was at home in Virginia. With those three short but cogent sentences, he enjoined his Vice-President to serve the country honorably. President Harrison was the first to die in office and John Tyler the first unelected “accidental” president.

William Harrison’s ascent was in large measure due to military service and his links to the gentry of Virginia. His father, Benjamin Harrison was a founding father and a signor of the Declaration of Independence. William wanted to be a physician and enrolled in the first Medical School established in the U.S and was associated with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Benjamin Rush practiced at that institution. After his father’s death, William Harrison left the medical school and joined the army. His first appointment was in the first American Regiment in which he served from 1791 to 1798. George Washington was the President from 1789 to 1797.

In 1793, Harrison prevailed over the Indian tribes at the Battle of Thames. Subsequently, in the Treaty of Greenville, a coalition of Indians ceded two thirds of their land in N.W territory. He was a signatory of that treaty in 1795. In the years that followed, he moved around and held several important positions. Some were by appointment - “… he parleyed military service and his family connections into a series of public positions.” (1) He also contested in elections to various positions; he lost as many as he won.

Westward expansion of the United States was furthered by Harrison during his years in the army. From 1798 to 1809, he played a significant role in adding the vast lands encompassing the great lakes. Before a State was formally established and incorporated into the Union, the lands on the American Continent were named as territories. The positions that he was appointed to by successive U.S. Presidents influenced and reinforced his own ( American ) world view. In 1798 he was appointed to be Secretary of the NorthWest Territory. Before a state was formally established and incorporated into the union, the lands on the U.S. continent were named territories.

Northwest Territory was divided into two sections. The Western section, the larger of the two, was named Indiana Territory. It included present-day Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, parts of Michigan and Minnesota. The other section was retained as the Northwestern Territory comprising present-day Ohio and Eastern Michigan. Harrison played a key role in organizing the division.

In 1801, President John Adams in the waning days of his presidency, appointed Harrison as the Governor of the newly established Indiana Territory referred to above. John Adams and his father Benjamin Harrison both served in the five member committee that was responsible to run the war effort during the American revolution. Their comradeship would have been a factor for William Harrison’s appointment to that important position. Thomas Jefferson reappointed him to be the Governor of the NW territory in 1803 and he served in that position until 1808. In 1809, President James Madison renewed the term.

After American Independence, further expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains was the ambition of all the Presidents including George Washington. Jefferson’s purchase of Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in April 1804, doubled the size of the nation and extended the borders across the Mississippi River to the Eastern Rocky Mountains. His eyes then turned to the vast Northwestern Territory encompassing the Great lakes. To accomplish that, it was necessary to displace the Native Indians by force, negotiation or other tactics. Jefferson wrote to Governor William Harrison -
“To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see them run into debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them of by a cession of lands.”

HARRISONS’S ROLE AND FAME DURING THE WARS BETWEEN AMERICAN MILITARY AND INDIAN TRIBES.

As the Governor of Indiana Territory, Harrison took over millions of acres of land from that Territory. He resigned as the Governor in 1812, but rejoined the army and rose to the position of a major general. In the battle of Tippecanoe, American forces prevailed against the Indians, who were then aligned with the British. That victory earned him the nickname, “ Tippecone or Old Tipp.”

Two brothers belonging to the Shawnee Indian tribes, Tecumesh and Tenskwatawa, attempted to unite all the tribes to form a Pan-Indian Tribal Confederacy to resist the American take over of their lands. To negotiate a deal, a meeting was scheduled between Tecumesh and Harrison. The interpreter offered a chair to the Indian leader and said,
“Your father requests you to take a chair.” Tecumesh responded, “My father! the sun is my father, and the earth is my mother; I will rise upon her bosom.”

In October 1814, American army with Harrison as the commanding officer defeated the British at the Battle of Thames near Ontario in Canada. Tecumesh who aligned with the British died in that war. The two wars together lasted three years.

“Although questions about his ( Harrison’s) leadership, and bravery led to Congressional investigation, the committee absolved him of all charges.” Major General Harrison entered the ranks of a war hero of American History and mythology.

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN’S OF 1832 AND 1836

Harrison drifted from one position to another over the next two decades. In 1816, he represented Ohio in the U.S. Congress and in 1825, the state legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate. He resigned from the senate in 1828 and President Monroe later that year appointed him to be the ambassador to Columbia. His involvement in that country’s domestic policies got him into trouble. When the President of Columbia, Simon Bolivar, was contemplating return to monarchy, Harrison supported republicanism and was closed to being arrested. Fortunately, he was recalled by President Andrew Jackson.

In 1795, Harrison he courted Anna Tuthill Symmes, the daughter of a judge and wealthy land owner in Ohio. Her father opposed their union but they married a few years later. She bore ten children but five died before he won the presidency. In 1830, he withdrew from public life and returned to his farm in North Bend, Ohio, hoping to lead a simple life farming and raising a family, but that did not work out. He was overwhelmed by financial troubles due to failed business ventures by one of his sons and death of another son. Mounting debts forced him to sell the lands. To survive, he served as a clerk in the Hamilton County Court.

In 1835, Harrison reappeared on the political scene at an opportune time. Whigs could not coalesce to come up with a single candidate to run against Martin Van Buren, Vice-President to the highly popular President Andrew Jackson. In the 1836 election, Harrison ran independently as one of the four Whig candidates. Campaigning publicly for the presidency was not the norm until 1836. Harrison ignored that time honored tradition and sought the office openly. The war hero who had held important positions in public life and was toiling as a clerk in a remote town, became known to the public at large on that campaign. He lost but secured the highest number of votes among the four Whig candidates which impressed the party leaders.

There is a saying that “Luck is a good word, if you put a P before it.” Fickle luck can be good or bad. Four years later, Whig Party leaders in 1840, debated at the party convention, compromised and floated a single candidate. They plucked the former Hamilton County Clark Harrison as their candidate.

As mentioned earlier, until 1836, the candidates refrained from campaigning as a moral and ethical imperative. Instead, supporters took up the task of persuading and influencing the population to vote for their candidates. Harrison, who had ignored that tradition in 1836, ran a even more boisterous campaign in 1840 . He appealed to the crowds in a few rallies with short speeches. The nick name"Old Tip and “Tippiecanoe,” were used in slogans and on banners, to highlight Harrison’s success in the battles against the Native Indians and their British allies. Witty songs and poems giving a positive color to his were circulated extolling Harrison’s simple life and virtues. One Whig leader said that “General Harrison was sung into the Presidency.”

An editorial in a newspaper sarcastically wrote that Harrison should be given a barrel of hard cider and provide a log cabin by the side of a “sea coal fire” and a pension to spend the rest of his life. “The Whigs … transformed the slur into an asset, jubilantly launching one of the most colorful campaigns in history : the log-cabin, hard- cider campaign of 1840”. (2) Harrison won with a large electoral vote margin - 234 vs 60. Harrison transformed the political campaigning into a standard practice permanently, making colorful rallies, large meetings, conventions and speeches the norm.

THIRTY DAY PRESIDENCY
President Harrison “ … appeared at all inaugural ball held in the city. Besieged by office-seekers, Harrison spent most of the first days of his administration handing out jobs.” He selected the cabinet from different states but gave key positions to luminaries of the era, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Henry Clay of Kentucky. He chose Daniel Webster to be the Secretary of State and Clay’s friend, John Crittenden as the Attorney General.

ACUTE ILLNESS AND MEDICAL CARE

The primary source for the following are the following :

*Volume 1 of “ President’s House” published by White House Historical Association, Washington D.C. by William Seale, 1986.

* The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal : No.17, XXIV, Wednesday, June 2, 1841.

On the evening of the inaugural day, Harrison was reported to have had fever and chills which would have been brief as he was up and about the city in the subsequent days. Few days earlier on Sunday he attended services in two churches.
On March 26th 1841, Dr. Thomas Miller, was summoned to the White House. He reported that “He ( President ) complained of having been indisposed for several days, which he attributed to ( physical) and mental fatigue he had undergone.” The next day, he had an abrupt onset of fever with chills.

At the request of the family or on his own, Dr.Miller summoned other physicians as consultants. Dr. F. May, on the 28th stated, “Upon examination, I was satisfied that the lower lobe of the lung was the seat of pneumonia.” Dr. N.W.Worthington was brought in on April 1st and two other physicians,Dr. Alexander and Dr. J. C.Hall joined the team on April 3rd. All of them concurred with the diagnosis and also with the treatment.

According to the Boston Medical Journal, “Dr.Miller began treating with tough old remedies, which by 1841, were considered out of date by physicians.” He was bled with leeches, cupped with hot metal cups to create blisters, hot liquids obtained by boiling some roots, calomel, laxatives, Dover Powder, shots of whiskey, and tincture of opium.

Dr.William Osler, one of the most respected physician of the early twentieth century and author of the Text Book of Medicine, was still supporting bleeding. Dr.Osler also commented on the frequency of spontaneous resolution of pneumonia and that the mortality, was less than 30% overall in that pre-antibiotic era. Could Harrison have survived? Not likely, given his advanced age and debilitated state. Considering that the average life expectancy in that era was around forty, he had lived well beyond that age.

My narrative of above medical events is not to belittle those doctors. However, judging from the comments in the Boston Medical Journal, we have to infer that the doctors continued obsolete practices and were not up to date, even if those treatments were archaic by current standards. Suffering inflicted on such a debilitated patient was preventible and unwarranted.

When I look back, I realize how far behind medical practice was a mere fifty years ago relative to what it is today. New diagnostic tools and vastly more therapeutic options have enabled the physicians to diagnose most diseases expeditiously and offer better focussed treatments. That requires considerable effort to keep in touch with new trends. Though I retired eight years ago, I subscribe to two medical journals to keep myself informed; I keep reminding myself that I am a patient now.

LEGACY OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM HARRISON

President Harrison left his imprint on American history in diverse contexts. leaving us with interesting anecdotes, which would be suitable for a trivia competition.
Born in 1773, three years before the Declaration of Independence, he was the last British Citizen to become the President of America. He was the oldest to seek and win the Presidency until that time and first President to die in office and in the WhiteHouse. The irony of delivering the longest inaugural address with the tragedy of shortest time in office are exceptional. Considering the number of days he was ill, the total time he was in office amounts to less than six hundred hours.

The most important legacy, I think, rests on the colorful new trend he initiated in the presidential campaigns. In 1834, Senator Henry Clay, a key founding member of the Whig Party, pressed Harrison to include a few more of his acolytes in the cabinet. Harrison told him with authority - “Mr.Clay, you forget that I am the President.”

In the short time he was in the White House, he faced a major financial crisis. The Federal government did not have sufficient funds in the treasury. To address that situation, a special session of the Congress was necessary, but he refused to call for the session initially. He instructed the treasury secretary to study the matter and upon his recommendation, one week later, he called for a special session of the Congress. It was to be held on 31st May, several weeks before his death. There are good reasons to believe that he would have been a successful president. It is hard not to draw a contrast with that measured action taken by President Harrison and the indifference of Donald Trump presiding over the longest shut down of the government to date.

In the original Articles of the U.S. Constitution, transfer of power to the Vice-President was not explicitly written, but Harrison was unambiguous with his final words on the death bed. Yet, many in the Congress and Whig party leaders “ … expected ( John Tyler ) to be an acting President.” The unexpected death of President Harrison and smooth transfer of power to his successor firmly established a custom. It is surprising that such an important matter was formalized by the 25th Constitutional Amendment in 1967, four years after the assassination of JFK.

Bibliography:

1. Brinkley, Alan and Dyer Davis : The Readers Companion of the American Presidency. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

2. Boller, Paul. F : Presidential Anecdotes, Penguin Books, 1981.

3. Morgan, Robert : Lions of the West, Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion.

4. Osler, William : The Principles and Practice of Medicine, D. Appleton and Company, 1892.

5. Zinn, Howard: APeople’s History of the United States, Harper Collins, 2003.

“ Gentlemen, I feel a great difficulty how to act. I am Vice President. In this I may be NOTHING, but I may be EVERYTHING” - John Adams.
(It was Part of the opening statement to the First Senate delivered on April 21, 1789).

April 30, 1789, was described to have been a bright and sunny day in New York City. Flowers on trees small and large must have blossomed on that spring day when a new nation was born. Jubilant crowds gathered to witness the swearing in ceremony and inauguration of the first President, George Washington. It took place in New York city which served as the temporary capitol. “Federal Hall, where the Congress met, was a handsomely proportioned stone building at the junction of Broad and Wall Streets distinguished by its glass cupola and colonnaded front balcony… Emblazoned in the pediment of the of the front portico was an immense American eagle.” (1)

Two days earlier on April 21, 1789, John Adams was welcomed into the Senate Chamber of the Federal Hall and formally acknowledged as the Vice- President. One week later, on the 30th, Vice-President greeted George Washington and led him to the balcony where he took the oath of office. He was reelected unanimously four years later and inaugurated in Philadelphia on March 4, 1793.

As per the original U.S. Constitution, the President was elected by the Electors representing the original thirteen states. The Number of Electors were “equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled to in the Congress.”

The person who got the most votes became the President and the one who stood second became the Vice-President. John Adams was aware that George Washington was favored to win the presidency, but privately, he had hoped against hope that he would get the highest number of electoral votes. Behind the scenes, Alexander Hamilton played a critical role persuading the electors to vote for George Washington. Adams would not know of it during his life time. Ten persons were on the ballot; George Washington got sixty-four votes and John Adams thirty-four.

Article 1, Section 3 of the U.S. constitution defines and limits the role of the Vice- President to be “ The President of the Senate but shall have no vote unless they ( the Senate) be equally divided.”

After acknowledging that his office would be merely ceremonial, stating that he may be nothing or everything he continued:
"I am also the President of the Senate. When the President comes into the Senate, what shall I be ?”
Silence was broken by Senator Oliver Ellsworth: “I find sir, it is evident and clear, sir, that whenever the Senate are to be there, sir, you must be at the head of them. But, further, sir, I shall not pretend to say.” (1).

As anticipated by John Adams, his eight years as Vice-President amounted to NOTHING. He was ignored for the most part and was not included in some important cabinet meetings. Deeply wounded he bemoaned, “To be wholly overlooked, and to know it are intolerable.”
He derived some satisfaction when he was elected to succeed George Washington. He served one term from 1797 to 1801. Thomas Jefferson was his Vice-President. They two were poles apart in their political philosophy and personal dispositions. It was an unhappy marriage.

In the Presidential election of 1800, there were four candidates. President Adams, Vice - President Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and Thomas Pinckney. Jefferson and Burr both ran as Democratic-Republicans and obtained equal number of Electoral votes (73 each). Federalists, incumbent John Adams and Charles Pinckney got 65 and 64 votes respectively. In case of a tie, the Constitution authorized the Congress to chuse the President. ( in the original constitution chuse was the spelling used for choose). Congress chose Jefferson to be the President and Burr infamous for killing Alexander Hamilton, became his Vice- President. John Adams a staunch Federalist, got 65 electoral votes and Pinckney 64.

Feeling humiliated loosing to his Vice President, Adams returned home without attending the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson. Thus ended the career of one of the most important founding fathers.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS RELATED TO PRESIDENT & VICE-PRESIDENT
The original Constitution with seven articles was ratified on September 17, 1787. Pursuant to the Article 5 of the Original Constitution, amendments known as Bill of Rights were ratified. A total of 22 amendments were ratified starting with ten in 1791. The last amendment passed in May 1992.
The founding fathers did not envision the difficulties that would arise when the President and his Vice-President had different political leanings. To rectify that awkward situation, in 1804, Congress passed the 12th Amendment, allowing the Electors to vote separately for the President and the Vice-President. In those Amended Articles, new clauses that affected the President, Vice - President and the exact date of inauguration were ratified. (The amendments are listed below the bibliography)*

The Vice-Presidents became consequential only when they inherited the office when the President died in office. One exception was in August 1974, when, following the resignation of Nixon, Vice-President Gerald Ford took over the Presidency. The Vice-Presidents who moved into the White House under such circumstances have been termed “Accidental Presidents.”

( Vice-President Spiro Agnew was the first and only Vice-President to resign and President Nixon appointed Gerald Ford. In turn, President Ford appointed Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice-President).

Including the incumbent President Donald Trump, forty seven presidents were elected to the high office. Ten Presidents were elected in a year ending in zero starting with the third President Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and the fifth President James Monroe in 1820. The following seven successive Presidents from 1840 to 1960 died in office and their Vice-Presidents became “Accidental Presidents,” and thus, as stated by John Adams, “everything.”

The one and probably the most important incumbent Vice-President who was “everything,” was Mike Pence. Though he was faithful to Donald Trump and oblivious to his President’s countless shortcomings, when it mattered, despite risk to his life, he stood his ground on January 6th, 2020. What would have been the consequences if Mike Pence had not stood ground or if one senator or congressman were harmed?

PRESIDENTS WHO DIED IN OFFICE AND THEIR ——— VICE-PRESIDENTS

1840: William Henry Harrison —————————————-John Tyler 1860: Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson
1880: James Garfield Chester Arthur.
1900: William Mckinley Theodore Roosevelt.
1920: Warren Harding Calvin Coolidge
1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry Truman.
1960: John F. Kennedy Lyndon Johnson.

( FDR was elected in 1932, 1936, 1940 & 1944. Though he died in 1945, in his fourth term, as he was elected in 1940, I have included him in this list).**

President Zachary Taylor, the 12th President elected in 1848, died in 1850 five days after participating in the July 4th celebration at the Washington monument. He had acute gastrointestinal symptoms, thought to be due to cholera.

After 1840 and until 1980, an ominous spell was cast on American Presidents elected in an year ending in zero. Did the candidates who sought the nomination of their party in 1980, consider the jinx associated with winning the presidency in those years? Obviously not. President Jimmy Carter was challenged by Senator Edward Kennedy in the primaries. George Herbert Walker Bush waged a vigorous campaign for the Republican Party nomination. He lost to Ronald Reagan and enthusiastically accepted to serve as his Vice-President.

Ronald Reagan was the first divorced President of the United States. His second wife and First Lady was known to have consulted astrologers for guidance. Did the potential misfortune that dogged the nation for one hundred and twenty years cross Nancy Reagan’s mind? Though she was considered to be religious, one has to wonder if she sought blessings from non-divine interventions to stave of that zero year ill omen. Perhaps her unconventional method was effective. Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley on March 30, 1982, but survived, thanks to skillful surgeons and other physicians that attended on him.

British Parliamentary system should be of interest to the readers. In 1721, Robert Walpole was named the First Minister of the crown under King George l, and served as the head of the cabinet. The designation of that position as the Prime Minister took root many decades later, but Walpole is recognized as the first one. In the three- hundred-four years since, fifty-eight served as Prime Ministers. Only one Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval was assassinated in 1812. He was shot to death in the coridor of the House of Commons by John Belligham who had a grievance against the government. The shortest tenure of a Prime Minister was that of Earl of Bath for two days from February 10 to 12th in 1746!

The Parliamentary system, for obvious reasons does not suit the United States. Our constitution with a four year term for the president with an option for seeking a second term and bicameral legislature has served us well. However, recent events have exposed the short comings of the process of impeachment to remove a president for violating the constitution.

The legacies and consequences of three Presidents - Lincoln, FDR and JFK are well known to readers. In the articles to follow, I will present a brief outline of the life and tenure of the other four who died in office.

What would have been the consequences if Mike Pence had faltered or even if one member of the Congress or Senate had perished in the insurrection. I am sure this thought must have crossed the minds of many readers.

Bibliography:
Sources for this are primarily from the essay titled the 9th American President. In addition, some information was gathered from the following:

1. McCullough, David: Biography of John Adams, published by Simon and Schuster in 2000.

2. Alter, Jonathan: The Defining Moment, FDR’S Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, Simon and Schuster, 2006.
   Constitutional Amendments relevant to President and Vice-President.

   *Article 25, Section 2:
   Whenever there is a vacancy of the Vice-President, the President shall nominate a Vice-President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority of both houses of Congress.

   ** Article 22:
   No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. It was ratified on March 1, 1951. (This was enacted after FDR contested and won the Presidency four times in a row).
   ***Article 20:
   Section 1:
   The term of the President and Vice-President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January. (This amendment was passed to shorten the time between the election conducted on the first Tuesday of November and inauguration on March 4).
   Section 3:
   If at the time fixed for the beginning of term of the President, the President shall have died, the Vice- President shall become President.

( President- Elect FDR narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Miami on February 15, 1933. Five persons sustained minor injuries, but one bullet hit the Mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak who died on 6th March. Had FDR been martyred, Vice- President Elect, Jack Garner of Uvalde, Texas would have become the President. Garner was reported have been a poor communicator, lacked charisma and did not have the political acumen to pull the country out of depression.

“How many things our sons will learn that we can not now suspect! …others (will ) wait centuries when our names will be forgotten … Our descendants will marvel at our ignorance” Roman Stoic Philosopher, Lucius Seneca ( 4 B.C.E. - 65 A.D).

Twenty-five centuries after Hippocrates, a distinguished Canadian Physician, Sir William Osler (1849-1919) was esteemed as the Father of Clinical Medicine. He was renowned for his skill in diagnosing diseases by obtaining a detailed history and conducting a thorough examination. That was before sphygmomanometer to measure the blood pressure, EKG and X- Rays were available. The only instrument he had was a stethoscope.

Dr. Osler was recruited by Johns Hopkins Hospital to develop standard educational programs for students after they graduated from medical school. He was instrumental in developing the residency programs extant today.

He moved to Oxford University in 1905. His last lecture was given on May 16, 1919. The title of the speech was “ Old Humanities and the new Science.” He ended that speech expressing the hope that:
“ Through the Hippocratic combination of the love of humanity (philanthropia), love of one’s craft (philotechnia), humankind would somehow acquire the requisite wisdom (philasophia) to survive, and flourish , and science would prove a force of good rather than evil.”

After the Golden Age of Greece ended, Hippocratic and Asclepian traditions coexisted without acrimony for nearly one thousand years. Hippocrates succeeded in dislodging the priests and temples from medicine but not entirely. The reason must have been his continued belief in gods. Hippocratic Oath begins with obeisance to gods : "I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea and all the gods and goddesses … .” Hence, from a theological perspective, he approved prayers to seek solace and for favorable outcomes.

As Hippocratic traditions were not uniformly adhered to by his followers, several discordant sects evolved over the next six centuries. Next to Hippocrates, the most celebrated historical figure in ancient medicine was Claudius Galen, who was a trusted friend and personal physician to the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius ( 121-180 A.D ). Galen revered Hippocrates and successfully wove together all the different strands of the sects into one tradition.

Galen studied medicine at his birthplace Pergamon, now in Turkey, and in Alexandria. He believed in Humors and many other concepts taught by Hippocrates. In addition, Galen introduced the idea of conducting experiments to determine the physiological function of anatomical structures. By dissecting carcasses, and vivisecting live animals, and by examining wounded and slain gladiators, he came to some accurate conclusions. For example, he demonstrated that urine is generated in the kidneys and flows into the bladder through the ureters. Many more of his conjectures, however, were wrong. One of the most egregious errors was his postulation that liver synthesized blood and pumped it to out to the body through the veins. Galen also prepared several mixtures utilizing herbs, oils, and minerals for treating diseases. Those concoctions were popularly known as “galenicals” that were frequently prescribed by physicians, some even as recently as the early twentieth century.

Galen considered himself a philosopher and the best physician not merely for his times but for eternity. The following statement epitomizes his arrogance and vanity - “Only I understand it ( Medicine). If you study me you will know all there is to to know.” Though, Hippocratic traditions remained in vogue along with Galen’s dictums, successive generations of physicians accepted his pronouncements as gospels. From the 2nd to he 17th century, Galen was the unchallenged authority. The fact is, his negative impact on medicine far outweighed the contributions.

UNSEATING GALEN

Basic knowledge of human anatomy and physiology are fundamental requisites for all physicians regardless of their specialty. Greek and Roman physicians were hindered by the prohibition of cadaver dissection. During Renaissance, Padua became the acclaimed center for medicine. Some brave students who stole cadavers from grave yards for dissection were prosecuted, but acquitted. Finally, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484), an alumnus of the University of Padua, officially authorized dissection of cadavers.

Andreas Vesalius ( 1514-1564), as a student in Paris and later at Padua had mastered Hippocratic and Galenic Medicine. He was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the Padua University when he was twenty-four years old. By dissecting hundreds of cadavers diligently, he exposed Galen’s numerous mistakes. He published an accurate text book on human anatomy, accompanied by illustrations drawn by artist Stephan von Calcar, who stood by his side during dissections. In 1543, their text book “De Huani Corporis Fabrica” ( On the Workings of Human Body ) was published. That was the first step in a long process to sideline Galen. Historians justifiably hail Vesalius as the Father of Human Anatomy.

Next to Vesalius, English physician, William Harvey ( 1578-1657 ) was the key figure to dismantle one of Galen’s major theories. He focussed on elucidating the function of the heart and flow of blood. After studying circulation in animals, and conducting numerous experiments, Harvey proved that heart was the organ that, "sets in motion as it were in a circle … the circulation of the blood.” His authoritative publication, “De Mortu Cordis,” was first published in German. Harvey, set in motion further research to counter Galen’s verdict on the functioning of human organs. Harvey can be regarded as the Father of Physiology.

Over the past three and a half centuries, countless scientists and physicians, with painstaking research, advanced medicine to eliminate several diseases, and to contain many that plagued humanity for millennia. Pioneers like Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Marie Curie, to name a few, deserve to be named the fathers of the subjects they focused on. Marie Curie, was the first women to win the Nobel Prize and the first to win twice in two different categories - perhaps, First Mother of Western Medicine.

Bearing in mind the facts stated in the preceding paragraphs, should Hippocrates still be revered as the Father of Western Medicine? For the reasons enumerated in Part 1 of the essay on this topic, I share the opinion of the historians that Hippocrates deserves that designation. Introduction of moral and ethical precepts into medical practice through the Oath, by itself , was a watershed event.

RELEVANCE OF HIPPOCRATIC OATH IN MODERN TIMES.

Hippocratic Oath has been modified by various organizations and medical institutions to suit our times. The objective is to protect the health of the patients and for physicians to practice with dignity, honesty, and integrity. In 1948, a Declaration in Geneva by the Western Medical Association ( W.M.A ), formulated a modified version which was amended in 1966 and 1983. Following are the first and last sentences of the twelve page declaration :
"I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity.”
”I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor.”

COMPENSATION FOR PHYSICIAN SERVICES.

In Italy, in the middle ages, according to historian Will Durant, “The most prosperous (profession) was medicine.” Italian scholar, poet and humanist Francis Petrarch, “denounced the high fees of the physicians, their robes of scarlet, and their sparkling rings and golden spurs.” When Pope Clement VI was ill, Petrarch wrote to him to be wary of the doctors : “I know that your bedside is beleaguered by doctors and naturally, this fills me with fear. They learn the art at our expense, and even death brings them experience; the physician alone has the right to kill with impunity. Remember the warning epitaph which an unfortunate man had inscribed on his tombstone, “ I died of too many physicians.” (2) The fact that Hippocrates alluded to physicians fees, indicates that he was troubled by the prevailing practice of seeking compensation.

Steady progress in medicine and surgery beginning in the early twentieth century, particularly, technological advances in the past seventy- five years, has brought about spectacular success in alleviating human suffering with effective treatments for innumerable diseases. However, inevitably, and of necessity, it has come at a high monetary cost, particularly for the federal, state, and local governments. Besides, the new developments have unfortunately undermined physicians humanistic approach.

Bureaucracy at all levels to administer the vast programs, to maintain electronic medical records, and need to utilize complex codes to bill Medicare and insurance companies have ballooned the cost. Burgeoning population, expensive and effective new drugs and devices are significant factors as well. Primary Care doctors ( Family Practitioners and Internists ) have to work longer hours and take home far less than specialists leading to burn out.

As a private practitioner for over four decades, mainly as a pulmonary and partly as a critical care physician, I am aware by own experience that many specialists in private practice have to work sixteen to eighteen hours on some days. That is a reason for burn out for some specialists.

Physicians choose the medicine for one primary reason or a combination of several : out of genuine love of the profession and commitment to serve, for prestige and respect in the community, or to be associated with academic institutions. Job security and financial independence may be the primary objective for some first generation immigrants. I know that to be the case among quite a few of the Indian diaspora. Parents often persuade their children to focus on qualifying for admission into medical or osteopathic colleges in U.S.A., and failing that to search in overseas schools. That is understandable and can not be faulted, unless it is forced on their children.

What is not proper is to take up the profession with a goal to become wealthy at any cost. Such an approach can often make the physicians trespass into unethical territory. The physicians who cared for Michael Jackson and actor Mathew Perry are glaring examples, but there are many instances that will never come to public scrutiny or notice.

With income generated by working long hours, it is perfectly legitimate for an enterprising physician to seek wealth by investing in non-medical enterprises. However, in my opinion, quest for wealth by investing in entities that are directly linked to patient care can violate the ideals enunciated Hippocrates.

While the vast majority of physicians are honorable, it only takes a tiny minority to milk the system. It is euphemistically called creative billing in medical shoptalk. To be profitable, it is a fact that corporate hospitals and insurance companies that are listed in the stock market, sometimes pursue innovative practices, which on paper can be legal, but are similar to creative billing.

During the Golden Age of Greece, it was a common practice for doctors to seek compensation for their services. Will Durant states that “City governments reconciled socialized medicine with private medicine by engaging doctors to attend to public health, and to give treatment to the poor.” A food for thought for our times!

Bibliography:

1. Chang, Anna, Elanor M.Lad, Shivanand P.Lad : Neurosurgical Focus, 2007, 23( 1 ) 59, Dept. of Neurosurgery, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, Ca. “Hippocrates is widely considered the father of Medicine. His contributions revolutiomized the practice of medicine and laid the foundation for modern day neurosurgery.”
   

2. Durant, Will : The Story of Civilization, Volumes 2, 3, 4 and 5 ( The life of Greece, Ceaser and Christ, The Age of Faith and the Renaissance ). MFJ Books, New York, 1939.

3. Nuland, Sherwin B. : Doctors: The History of Medicine Revealed through Biography. Published by The Teaching Company, Virginia, 2005.
   ( www.teach12.com )

4. Schmid, Zeno and Karenberg M.D : Musical Expressions of the Hippocratic Oath. Journal of American Medical Association, Volume 327, No 12, March 22-29, 2022.
   The 15th World Congress of the Society of Cardiovascular Surgery was conducted at an ancient theater in Athens. It was attended by physicians from all over the world. At the request of the President of the Congress, Dr. Panagiotis, musician Iannis Xenakis composed and presented, a seven minute piece,“Sement - Orkos Oath for mixed chorus.” A second Oath composition, “Der Eid Hippokrates” written by Mauricio Kagel was performed in Germany. Interested physicians with a musical background can review the article, and, perhaps introduce it in their medical schools during the White Coat ceremony to initiate the medical graduates into the profession.
   
   * Most of us know that medical, pharmaceutical and allied industries constitute a complex web in our society that defy easy solutions. In due course, after resarch, I wish to share my thoughts based on my first hand experiences in the arena since 1971. I hope it can generate interest among the readers.

   
   
   

“Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also love of humanity”

“Sometimes, give your services for nothing ; and if there be an opportunity of serving a stranger who is in financial straits, give him full assistance. For where there is love of man, there is love of the art.”

Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.E).

It is universally acknowledged that ancient Greeks sowed the seeds for the birth of Western Civilization. Hippocrates, the Father of Western Medicine, lived during the Golden age of Greece that lasted about eighty years in the 5th and 4th Century B.C.E. (According to the historian Will Durant, it was between 480-399. Socrates passed away in 399 B.C.E).
In that age, according to Will Durant, “… art, science, philosophy, literature, religion , and morals were woven into the fabric of the nation’s history.”

Hippocrates was born on the Isle of Kos in the Aegean sea, in the present day Turkey. His father, Heraclides, was a physician and a priest at the temple of the mythical god Asclepius. The priest-physicians were called Asclepians or Asclepiads which was a hereditary position. Hippocrates is believed to have trained at an Asclepeian Temple School in Kos and as per the prevailing tradition, he began practicing as an itinerant physician. Subsequently, he and his followers in the following generations, in addition, also settled in a place and set up practice analogous to physicians offices. The medical practice when Hippocrates arrived on the scene was based on religious myths, superstitions, and theurgy. He rejected those time-honored traditions and initiated new concepts and methods.

His original teachings and those of his disciples were written on papyrus rolls and compiled into a Corpus. It is believed that the Hippocratic Corpus was a vast collection of lectures, notes, and writings enunciating the principles of medical practice. The Corpus was placed in the public library at Alexandria, Egypt, along with scholarly compositions by scholars on other subjects. Unfortunately, part of the library was first destroyed in 48 B.C.E. by a fire during the siege of the city by Julius Caesar. In the subsequent centuries the library sustained additional destruction. The number of scrolls that were in the library originally is uncertain, with estimates ranging from forty to one hundred thousand. Among those that survived, only about seventy works belong to Hippocratic Medicine and within that only seven to nine are considered to be the authentic works of Hippocrates. The rest written over the next two centuries are attributed to those who continued that tradition. Scholars came to that conclusion based on the consistency of the style and quality of Hippocratic writings and heterogeneity of others.

The texts written by Hippocrates have been placed under various categories with a caption that indicates the primary topic covered. However, there seems to be an overlap and any given text is not strictly confined to a particular topic. In the following narrative I am presenting snippets from the Corpus, but not in any particular order.

1. Sacred or Demonic Diseases :
   Though he inherited his position from his father, Hippocrates rejected that custom asserting that any person could aspire to be a physician. In course of time, he recognized that Asclepian practice was based on religious myths and superstitions. He distanced himself from temples and affirmed that diseases are caused by natural phenomenon or environmental factors and not due to supernatural powers or divine intervention.

   His approach was holistic, emphasizing that a patient should be assessed viewing the whole body and mind as one entity and not be based on a few symptoms or signs of a disease. Emphasis was placed on rational analysis of symptoms and observation of the patients closely to uncover signs of diseases. By doing so, he paved the way for establishing medicine as a profession, and medical practice as an art and science.

2. Hippocratic Oath:
   The Oath is listed in the Hippocratic Cannon of the Corpus. It is probably the most widely known text to lay persons. He was the first one to propose that medical practice should be governed by moral and ethical codes and with an altruistic spirit. Following are a few pledges that are part of the original Oath:

   “I will keep keep pure and holy, both my life and my art.” “I will not give a woman a pessary to cause abortion.” “ to help the sick … I will abstain from all intentional wrong doing and harm, …” “And whatever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession … I will never divulge, holding such things (information about patients) to be holy secrets.” This statement corresponds to modern privacy policy.
   The oath contains a statement that he would treat patients according to his ability and judgement regardless of their social status, be it a citizen or a slave. There is also a pledge that if a patient requests “poison”, he would decline implying his opposition to euthanasia.
   Presently, as a right of passage and advancement to be a physician, students, after graduation take a modified version of the Hippocratic Oath reflecting the above principles. All Medical and Osteopathic Schools in U.S.A. and most across the world hold a formal ceremony for that event.

3. On Airs, water and places:

   “ If you want to learn about the health of a population, look at the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the places they live.”

   (Above statement is from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences).
   Hippocrates observed that quality of the air, water, and where the patients lived had an impact on their health. Therefore, he taught the students to obtain a detailed history and document that information.

4. Epidemics (Epidemai in Greek):
   There are seven texts in this category. Epidemics 1 & 3 are attributed to Hippocrates. Above title referred to the occurrence of a disease in a community, but not in the sense used in modern times. The students were instructed to write down detailed notes of each patients history, what they observed on examination and the treatment that was offered. Forty two case histories were discovered in the Corpus. They included the patients names, occupations, and where they lived. Hippocrates described in detail and in a systematic manner many diseases which are well known to us today.
   As cadaver dissection was prohibited in ancient Greece, knowledge of the organs and their function was unknown to them. Therefore, they could not come up with a specific diagnosis or the primary organ involved. Examination of the patients was limited to what was perceived by the five senses. (Until the stethoscope was invented and introduced by Laennec in the early nineteenth century, clinician had no instrument for examining the patients. There is an essay on the Stethoscope on this site). Hippocrates instructed the students to observe and document the color of the bodily secretions, of urine and stool, and smells emanating from the patients. They checked the temperature of the skin and whether it was dry or moist to touch. Hippocrates was the first to observe that clubbing of the fingers indicated a chronic disease, typically due to tuberculosis of the lung. Risus Sardonicus is a term coined by Hippocrates to describe the appearance of the face due to contraction and fixation of facial muscles that is seen when a person develops infection with tetanus bacteria. After the introduction of routine vaccination with tetanus toxoid in the early years of twentieth century, tetanus is rarely encountered. “Humors.”
   He postulated that human body produces four types of colored fluids - “Humors,” which in a healthy state would be well balanced and that excessive production of any one of the fluids, he posited, results in an illness. (i) Red fluid (Sanguine): Flushed face due to fever reflecting excessive blood- sanguine appearance. (ii) Yellow bile: (bilious) as seen in patients with jaundice.
   (iii) Black Bile: black colored stool or vomitus as in gastrointestinal bleeding. It was ascribed to black or melancholic disposition.
   (iiii)Phlegm: (phlegmatic) coughing up phlegm or increased secretions from nasal passages and or oral cavity.
   He instructed his students to observe for signs that would point to a disease and direct treatment based on that. For example, sanguine appearance was treated by blood letting which was practiced well into late nineteenth centuries.
   Humors are with us today as words in the vocabulary of the English Language indicating the disposition of a person: sanguine- cheery disposition,

   bilious-short tempered,
   black bile-melancholia,
   phlegmatic- dull or apathetic.
   
   In the epidemics, description of several diseases are remarkably well described. Listed below are a few examples.
   Dermatology: Eczema, vitiligo and intertrigo.
   Oral diseases: aphthous ulcers, inflammation, abscess, tumors. When a surgical procedure was needed, for example, to open an abscess, small pharyngeal tubes were placed to keep the airway open.
   Empyema:( pus in the pleural space in the chest cavity due to pneumonia). By shaking the chest and listening over the chest wall with his ears, he was able to detect an empyema and then cut between the ribs to drain the pus.
   

5. Regimens:
   Preventive medicine was stressed in the Regimens. Hippocrates believed that human body can heal itself and that physicians should focus on aiding the patients to that end. Diet, exercise and healthy living practices were emphasized. “Live a healthy life and you are not likely to fall ill, except through epidemics or accidents.” “Make a habit of two things- to help or at least to do no harm.” “To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.” “Before you heal someone, ask him if he is willing to give up the things that made him sick.” “Excessive food causes diseases; all disease begins in the gut.”
   
   Based on the presenting symptoms of the patients and findings on examination, dietary modification, limiting food intake, massage, and hydrotherapy were recommended first. When conservative measures failed, an excess of a humor was considered the cause. Ascribing fever to be a disease by itself, draining blood was often resorted to. Emetics and purgatives to get rid of noxious substances were commonly used. When black stool or vomitus was encountered, to eliminate the black bile, enemas were administered often. Unfortunately, as we know now, such measures often were harmful and hastened death. Skin diseases were treated with sulphur baths and application of lotions containing olive oil and herbs.

6. On joints, fractures and head injuries:

   Recognition of limb fractures and placing splints or surgery when necessary are mentioned in the texts. Skull fractures were systematically categorized and those that could lead to accumulation of blood and compress the brain were identified. Trephining, a surgical procedure to drain the blood and reduce the intracranial pressure was done by drilling burr holes.

7. Hippocratic Aphorisms: Next to the Oath, aphorisms, I believe, are the best known Hippocratic writings which are concise and illuminating. Following are a few examples: “If you are in a bad mood go for a walk. If you are still in a bad mood, go for another walk.” “Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.” “Life is short, The Art is long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience is delusive. Judgement is difficult.” ( Hippocrates implies that the physician will have limited time and opportunities to learn the art and that one can get deluded that he has gained sufficient experience. The phrase “ judgement is difficult, ” is a cautionary note that coming to a conclusion about a disease can be difficult.

8. On Prognostics:
   Response to treatment and outcomes were recorded comprehensively. Such information coupled with their experience, the Hippocratic physicians concluded that about 60% died regardless of the treatment offered. Thus they could predict the prognosis of a given patient quite accurately. “Hippocratic facies,” describes the facial expression of a patient nearing death. Hippocratic practitioners considered it an obligation to inform the patient of the prognosis once they were reasonably convinced of the outcome.
   

   Epilogue for Part One.
   Above narrative is a synopsis of the Hippocratic approach to medicine. Asclepian and Hippocratic tradition coexisted for several centuries. Eventually around the fifth century A.D., Asclepian practice faded out. (FYI: Please refer to the essay on“ Insignia” on this site).

   In Part 2, the legacy of Hippocrates and his relevance in the twenty-first century will be presented. Sources for both parts will be listed along with annotations where required.
   

   
   
   

   
   
   

   
   

Flavia

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689- 1762 ), was a well-known poet and essayist. When afflicted with smallpox, she expressed her anguish and fear of disfiguration of the face in a ninety-six-line poem titled " The Smallpox." Below are the first eight lines of the poem. She called herself Flavia, which means golden in Latin, implying that she had golden hair. Fortunately, except for losing eyelashes, which resulted in a fiery appearance, her face was spared. (* She wrote long poems, as "Eclogues," on six days in a row except on Sundays. "Satturday" was spelled with two t's. The spelling of the poem is the way it was written in that era).

Satturday *

The Smallpox

The wretched Flavia, on her Couch reclin'd
Thus breath'd the Anguish of a wounded mind.
A Glass revers'd in her right hand she bore;
For she shunn'd the Face she sought before.
How am I chang'd ! Alas, how am I grown
A frightful Spectre to my selfe !
Where is my Complexion, where the radiant bloom
That promis'd Happyness for years to come ?

Physicians are aware that Edward Jenner (1749-1843) was responsible for experimentation and establishing the scientific basis for smallpox vaccination. However, Lady Montagu (1689 -1762), observing the practice of inoculation in Turkey, introduced preventive smallpox vaccination in England, decades ahead of Jenner.

Lady Montagu was known for her beauty, wit, and aristocratic position. Her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, was posted as ambassador to Turkey in April 1717. In September of that year, after the heat of the summer months had abated, she observed old women gather in Constantinople to enquire if any family members wanted to have their children inoculated with the material they had collected from smallpox lesions. The practice was well known and recognized by the community to be beneficial, and several children would be brought by their mothers. The woman injected the material into the skin with a needle; the procedure was termed "ingrafting." Lady Montagu keenly observed the process as well as the after-effects. She noted that the inoculated children fell ill with fever for two to three days and developed a few pox marks on the face that faded away gradually. Those children did not develop the full-blown disease when exposed to other children who had contracted the disease.

Convinced of the benefit of vaccination, with great enthusiasm, she wanted to bring it to the attention of the physicians. In 1718, after returning from Turkey, she engaged a physician to inoculate her son and daughter. In a letter to her friend, she wrote, " I am (a) patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England."(1)

Many doctors and the general population fiercely opposed the idea. When she decided to inoculate her son and daughter, the authorities assigned four physicians to monitor them. As they were hostile and skeptical, Lady Montagu did not leave the children alone, doubting the integrity of the physicians.

The doctors and general population were not receptive to the idea of a non-medical person, a lady at that, entering their domain. The clergy declared it an impious act, " taking events out of the hands of Providence." People were instructed to shout and mock her as an uncaring mother who put her children at risk. According to her granddaughter Lady Louisa Stuart, she would not have introduced the concept if she had any inkling of the persecution she would face.

In an elegantly written essay in 1722, Lady Montague advocated vaccination and lashed out at the doctors who opposed the practice. Part of the first paragraph is reproduced to illustrate her literary craft. I modified the punctuation to conform to modern English.

" Out of compassion to the Numbers, abused and deluded by the Knavery and Ignorance of Physicians, I am determined to give a true Account of the Manner of Inoculating Small Pox, as it is practiced at Constantinople with constant success, and without any ill consequence whatever. I shall sell no drugs nor take no fees, could I persuade people of the safety and reasonableness of this operation. 'Tis (It is) in no way my Interest ... to convince the World of their (physicians) Errors, that is, I shall get nothing by it, but the private satisfaction of having done good to Mankind, and I know nobody that reckons that satisfaction any part of their interest."

There were several instances of adverse results that fortified the opponent's views. The main reason for the negative outcomes was that, occasionally, the fluid collected from a lesion would be infected with bacteria. Inoculation of such fluid probably evolved into a pustule and caused systemic infection (sepsis), leading to death. Lady Montagu expressed the opinion that such instances were due to the creation of a larger-than-needed wound for inoculation. Gradually, the procedure gained acceptance as positive outcomes were documented.

Lady Montague was undoubtedly the first person to try a method now recognized as vaccination. She was courageous to risk her children's lives; she was proven right, as her children did not get the disease after vaccination. Her son disappointed the family with reckless conduct and absconded from home. To find him, she let it be known that he could be identified by vaccination marks on his arms; indeed, he was recognized by that means. The information about vaccination crossed the Atlantic and reached Boston, where her concept was utilized in the 18th century.

The story of Lady Mary would be incomplete without referring to her intriguing quarrel with her contemporary poet, Alexander Pope (1688-1744). Literary scholars regard Pope as one of the greatest among classical poets, next to Shakespeare and Milton. Lady Mary Montagu and Pope were friends in the early years and exchanged letters in pleasant verse and prose. Their relationship soured for uncertain reasons, allowing for societal gossip; close friends and family would certainly have known the reasons, which I could not fish up in the books I read. Lady Montagu claimed that Pope made romantic gestures that repulsed her; on his part, Pope contended that he loaned her linen, which was returned unwashed! (His father was a linen merchant).

In the anthology of "Lives of the Poets," Louis Untermeyer refers to Pope as a " Giant Dwarf." In his childhood, Pope was afflicted with Pott's Disease - tuberculosis of the spine, which destroyed several vertebrae resulting in short stature and hunchback; he was just 4 and a half feet. He suffered from pain throughout his life, and his ungainly appearance was a major handicap. Anglican Church was then the dominant religion, but he remained faithful to his parents’ Catholicism, which was not well received. Though he had befriended some women, his physical appearance deprived him of any romantic relationship. Besides, Pope was disliked for his splenetic disposition, which is understandable, given the above-listed handicaps. Pope wrote numerous poems attacking her character, accusing her of promiscuity, treachery, and meanness. In one verse, he sarcastically addressed her as Flavia, which Lady Mary called herself in her Smallpox poem. In a poetic format, he wrote a letter in February 1717:

Flavia is a wit, has too much sense to pray,
To taste her wants and wishes is her way
Nor asks of God, but of her stars to give
The mighty blessing, " while we live to live."

I will end the tribute to Lady Montagu with her poem (3: P 258). It was published in the London Magazine in May 1750, probably responding to a suggestion that she should retire from literary pursuits.

" An Answer to a Lady Advising Me to Retirement."

"You little know the heart you advise,

I view the various scene(s) with equal eyes.

In crowded court, I find myselfe alone,

And pay my worship to a nobler Throne.

Long since the value of this world, I know,

Pity the madness, and despise the show.

Well, as I can my tedious part, I bear

And wait for dismission without painful fear."

Seldom I mark mankind's detested ways,

Not hearing censure, nor affecting praise,

And unconcerned about my future fate, I trust

To that sole Being, merciful and just."

What is the legacy of Lady Mary Montagu? Scholars of English verse, for sure, will know of her primarily, perhaps, due to her unusual feud with a star poet, Alexander Pope.

Several decades later, two brothers, Daniel and Robert Sutton, laypersons, modified the technique by taking fluid from the pox vesicles that had clear liquid containing abundant virus particles without the bacteria. They did not, of course, know that the lesions had infectious organisms. It was termed the Suttonian method, and some inoculated children developed smallpox lesions, and some had febrile mild illness; however, they could transmit the disease to healthy children. By mid-century, despite the opposition, vaccination by this method became acceptable as positive results were observed with a decline in cases. The practice gradually spread to other European countries and the American colonies.

In 1980, the World Health Organization ( WHO ) recommended the termination of vaccination to prevent smallpox.

Sources:

1. Robert Halsband and Isobel Grundy: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Essays and Poems and Simplicity, a Comedy. Oxford University Press,1977.
2. Hoglom, William M.D. Discoverers of Medicine, Yale University Press, New Haven Press, 1949.
3. Untermeyer, Louis: Lives of the Poets, the Story of One Thousand Years of English and American Poetry. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959.

Addendum: I came across articles suggesting that the concept of vaccination to prevent smallpox was known to people in Africa, nations in the Caucasus, and ancient India. I will write an essay when I find reliable information. The story of smallpox through the millennia, from the time of the Pharos in Egypt to eradication, will be presented in an article in the History of Medicine category at a future date.
The image is a portrait of a lady by the impressionist artist Pierre- Auguste Renoir. It has some resemblance to the cover picture in sourcebook #1.

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
Unknown Author

Imagine for a moment the scenario of a person employed to work in the animal research laboratory of a prestigious university, but classified as a janitor. On top of that, he had to enter the facility from the side door for several years. That was the situation Mr. Vivien Thomas, an African American, faced to earn a living and continue his work.

In 1941, Dr. Alfred Blalock, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Vanderbilt University Hospital, was recruited to serve as the Surgeon-in-Chief and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. Dr.Blalock accepted the position on the proviso that his research assistant, Mr. Vivien Thomas, could work in his research lab. In those years, most of the African Americans at Johns Hopkins were janitors.

Before relocating to Johns Hopkins, from 1930 to 1941, Vivien worked at the Vanderbilt University Hospital under the supervision of Dr.Blalock. In 1937, Dr.Blalock was offered the position of Chief of Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, but he declined because, Mr.Thomas was not accepted. Olga, Vivien's sister, then living in Detroit, had predicted that "Lillywhite" Henry Ford Hospital would not employ him. The rejection of that offer proved fortuitous for the doctor and the lab assistant.

Mr. Vivien Thomas, grandson of a slave and son of a carpenter and seamstress, was born on August 29, 1910, in Louisiana. When he turned 13, after school and on weekends, Vivien spent several hours learning the trade and later assisted his father, who paid him hourly wages. He saved and deposited the money in the local People’s Bank. He graduated with honors from Pearl High School in 1929 and worked as an orderly in a private infirmary to earn additional funds to enroll in a college.
He dreamed of becoming a doctor, but in the wake of the stock market crash, the bank closed in 1930, and the savings vanished. After a brief stint as an apprentice to a carpenter, he secured a job at Vanderbilt University to work in the animal lab. In the interview, Dr.Blalock stated his vision for hiring Mr.Thomas: " As time goes on, I am getting more ... involved with patients and hospital duties. I want to carry on with my research and lab work, and I want someone in the lab I can teach and maybe (do) some things I can't do. There are lots of things that have not been done. I want someone who can get to the point that he can do things on his own, even though I may not be around."
Mr.Thomas exceeded the mentor's expectations. After work, he spent long hours studying anatomy, physics, and chemistry. Under the supervision of Dr.Blalock, he conducted experiments on hemorrhagic shock and "Crush Syndrome," which was a significant problem on the battlefield in the Second World War. The knowledge thus gained proved enormously beneficial to the surgeons and improved the survival of the patients.

The pediatric cardiology section at Johns Hopkins was led by Dr.Helen Taussig, who was particularly interested in congenital heart diseases. "Blue Babies" was the term used to describe children in whom a birth defect caused admixture of venous with arterial blood, resulting in the circulation of oxygen-deficient blood. It was a rare disease that was thought to occur in pregnant women exposed to viral infections such as Rubella. Maternal alcohol abuse was considered to be another predisposing factor. Genetic studies in recent years have identified several genetic mutations responsible for some of these anomalies.

The most complex of the congenital heart diseases was Fallot's Tetralogy, named after the French Physician Dr. Arthur Fallot (1850-1911), who, in 1888, identified the four defects. Dr.Taussig approached Dr.Blalock to devise a surgical procedure to correct the defects. Mr. Thomas conducted dissections on many dogs, learned to perform surgical procedures, and developed techniques and tools that could be utilized during complex surgeries. Often, he labored alone in the lab, and Dr.Blalock would drop in periodically to supervise and monitor the progress. In dogs, he replicated a defect similar to the Tetralogy of Fallot and devised a procedure to correct the anomaly.

On November 3, 1944, the first successful surgery was performed on one-year-old Eileen Saxon, who weighed a mere nine pounds. With advances in scientific knowledge and technology in recent years, the procedure is performed with ease now, but back then, it was considered a heroic effort fraught with a high risk of failure. Dr.Helen Taussig stood at the foot of the table, and among those who assisted Dr. Blalock were surgeons who, in later years, became eminent cardiac surgeons at leading institutions. On that momentous occasion, Dr. Blalock noted his partner's absence and, to the staff's chagrin, summoned Mr. Thomas to stand behind him on a stool to guide him. Surgeons from around the country who came to see the pioneering event were puzzled to see Dr.Blalock turn to the African American for advice.

Mr.Thomas, in his autobiography, recounted the role he played in the operating room:" ... if anyone happened to occupy the space, where I usually stood, looking over his shoulder, he ( Dr. Blalock ) would have him move." Some of the questions directed to Mr.Thomas were recalled by those who were in the operating room - " Is this incision long enough ? ", Is this alright ?". When Dr.Blalock started to apply sutures in the wrong direction, Mr.Thomas quietly, in a low voice pointed out " the other direction doctor." In a letter to his friend Dr. Mark Ravitch, dated August 8, 1965, Dr. William Longmire, who was the Chief Resident and assisted Dr.Blalock, recalling the first Blue Baby operation, wrote, " Vivien Thomas stood at the back of Dr.Blalock and offered several helpful suggestions regarding the actual technique of the procedure."

Mr.Thomas was in the operating room for the initial twenty-five to thirty cases. After the surgery was standardized, it was given the eponymous name of Blalock- Taussig shunt. The first baby, Eileen Saxon, survived only nine months; as the surgeons gained experience, the outcomes improved substantially. The surgery for Tetralogy of Fallot was abbreviated to "Tet," and the Pediatric Surgical Care Unit was simply called Tet Room.

Salesperson and Bartender Thomas:

At Vanderbilt, Mr. Thomas was paid a janitor's salary even though he was employed as a research assistant. As a carpenter, there was a potential to earn $20.00 per week. Still, because of his desire to work in the scientific arena, he accepted a position at the University that only paid $12.50 per week. About two years later, Dr.Blalock negotiated with the administrator and managed to hike the pay to $17.00 per week. The same pattern continued at Johns Hopkins. The prevailing racial segregation, discrimination, and poor housing amenities in Baltimore, coupled with inequitable salaries, weighed on domestic tranquility. Even though his wife worked, the combined income was insufficient. Therefore, periodically, he moonlighted as a medical supply company salesman and bartender on evenings and weekends. Thomas even served drinks at parties given by Dr.Blalock at his residence and at bars frequented by surgeons who, during the daytime, were in the lab learning from their teacher. After the Second World War, he considered moving back to Tennessee to start a carpentry business afresh. Dr.Blalock again intervened to get a higher salary at Johns Hopkins and persuaded Mr.Thomas to stay.

Groundbreaking TeT surgery was heralded in the media, but Mr.Thomas's name was conspicuously absent. After three successful surgeries, Dr.Blalock and Dr.Taussig published an article in the Journal of Medical Association (JAMA), but the silent partner's name was omitted (2). The University gave a banquet to honor Dr.Blalock and his team. Mr.Thomas's color was a barrier to his inclusion in the ceremony. Hoping to hear his name in Dr. Blalock's speech, he stealthily entered the hall and hid in a corner. He was heartbroken as the good doctor did not have the decency to acknowledge the pivotal role of the partner. Such ingratitude is an example of how petty an accomplished person can be.

Dr.Blalock passed away in 1964. His association with Mr. Thomas lasted thirty-four years. In 1976, Mr.Vivien Thomas was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws (L.L.D) degree instead of a medical doctorate, as he was a high school graduate and did not have formal medical education. He was appointed Chief of the Animal Research Lab and worked in that capacity until retiring in 1979. The portrait of Dr.Vivien Thomas adorns a corridor across from that of Dr.Blalock at Johns Hopkins. Many future surgeons learned surgical skills from Dr.Thomas. Following are a few grateful words of appreciation from those whom he mentored:

"That is what I took from him. Simplicity. There was not a false move, not a wasted motion when he operated." Dr.Denton Cooley of Texas Heart Institute was in the operating room at the first surgery.

Dr.David Sabiston was trained by Dr.Thomas and moved to Duke University in 1964. He wrote," We revered him as we did our professors. In the review of the Autobiography of Dr.Thomas, Dr.David Sabiston wrote," For one who had the privilege of being his student, co-worker, and later a colleague, reading his autobiography was an extraordinary experience." ( Published in JAMA, January 2, 1987:(Pages 87-88).

Bibliography and other sources.

1. McCabe, Katie: The article was published in the Washingtonian Journal in August 1989 and republished on June 19, 2020.

2. Thomas, Vivien: An Autobiography, Pioneering Research in Surgical Shock and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock: University of Pennsylvania, 1985.

3. Journal of Medical Association (JAMA). 300 (3) pages 328-330, July 16, 2008: Vivien Thomas's partnership with Dr. Alfred Blalock and Dr.Helen Taussig was published under JAMA Classics.

4. Documentary on PBS: Partners of the Heart.

HBO Film: Something that Lord Made.

https://www.msm.edu. (Morehouse School of Medicine has a brief biography of Vivien Thomas)

Addendum: A personal note

One of my elder brothers, six years older, was a blue baby. He survived and went to school until, as I recall, he turned twelve years old and then took tutorial courses at home and managed to graduate from high school. He would walk a few feet, stop to take a few breaths, and moved on, perhaps for fifty yards at a time at the most.

In December 1960, during the Christmas Holidays, he was admitted to Osmania General Hospital in Hyderabad. My father had summoned a Cardiologist from Calcutta for an expert opinion. He was discharged after a few days and passed away at home.

When I was a student at Gandhi Medical College, a doctor couple, Dr. Kola Venkaiah and Kola Rajyalaxmi, who were family friends, were professors at the college. They knew my brother from around the time he was ten years old. When I enquired, they informed me that the cardiologist concluded that my brother had Tetralogy of Fallot. In those days, a stethoscope, X-ray chest, and fluoroscopy to visualize the heart in motion were the only diagnostic tools available. Dr. Helen Taussig, the most experienced pediatric cardiologist in the world at that time, had examined a large number of children with the above tools and was able to diagnose congenital heart defects quite accurately.

As my brother lived close to twenty years, I wondered if my brother had the Tetralogy of Fallot or another type of congenital heart disease. In the textbook, "The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood," published in 1897*, I found the following note about the prognosis - " Of the 225 cases, 60% were fatal before the end of the fifth year, and nearly one-half of these during the first two months; while 16% of the cases lived over sixteen years, and 8% over thirty years." Until definitive surgery was established, there could not have been any intervention that altered the prognosis. I did not find information as to the maximum age a person with Tetralogy could survive; therefore, I believe that the Calcutta Cardiologist was correct and that my brother did have the Tetralogy of Fallot.

* L. Emmett Holt: The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1897.

“There never was any heart truly and generous that was not also tender and compassionate.” - Robert South. (1634-1716), English Theologian.

This narrative is a profile of a courageous and compassionate woman of the twentieth century. Shortly after dawn on July 23, 2012, in the city of Kanpur, India, ninety-seven-year-old Dr.Laksmi Sahgal stepped out with a broom to sweep the yard in front of her house. In that humble dwelling, she also operated a medical clinic to serve the destitute. Preparing for the morning session, she sustained a heart attack and collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital but passed away a few days later.

Dr. Sahgal was born on October 14, 1914. Her father, Mr. Swaminathan Iyer, was an eminent lawyer, and her mother, Amma Kutty, was a social activist who took her young daughter to a meeting of the Indian National Congress, which spearheaded the independence movement. Mahatma Gandhi was at that session, but Mr. Subash Chandra Bose, another prominent leader, made a greater impression on the future doctor.

She graduated from Madras Medical College in 1938 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) and a Diploma in Obstetrics and Gynecology (DOG). After her marriage to a pilot ended in divorce, she moved to Singapore, where she ran a clinic to serve migrant workers. In July 1943, Subash Chandra Bose formed an independent Indian Government in exile in Singapore and raised an army to wage war against the English colonial power in India. To shed light on the career of Dr.Sahgal, it is necessary to digress briefly to highlight the life of her mentor Subhash Bose.

Subash Chandra Bose graduated from Cambridge University in 1920 and obtained the highly coveted Indian Civil Service (ICS) degree, which would have earned him a lucrative and prestigious position in the British Indian Government. Instead, he did not utilize that opportunity and entered the political movement to free India from colonial rule. Early in his career, Mr. Bose joined the Indian National Congress Party and joined hands with Mahatma Gandhi, but Gandhi and Bose drifted apart due to major differences. Unable to come to terms with the hierarchy and being fiercely independent, he resigned and decided to continue the freedom movement without a firm commitment to non-violence. The following two statements, for example, expressed his political view:
"Freedom is not given but to be taken.”
“No real change in history has ever been achieved by discussion.”

Bose was placed under house arrest as he was an inspiring leader capable of arousing mass agitations. With extraordinary courage and ingenuity, disguised as an Afghan tribal, in January 1941, he escaped to Afghanistan, hoping to get a visa to go to Russia, which was denied. Eventually, traveling incognito he reached Germany, where he stayed until February 1943. The time he spent in Germany did not yield the support he hoped for ; he met Hitler and the top brass of the Nazi regime and did not have a favorable opinion of them. He clandestinely escaped to Singapore, which was wrested from the British by Japan in 1942.

At twenty-eight, Dr.Sahgal, inspired by Bose, abandoned her medical career to join the revolutionary movement. The lady doctor served as a trusted lieutenant of Mr. Bose on and off the battlefield.

Her remarkable life spanned two years on the war front and over six decades as a general practitioner after India gained independence in 1947.

In 1943, Dr.Sahgal was interviewed by Bose and commissioned her to train and lead an all-women infantry division of the Indian National Army (INA). About one thousand women, who never had combat experience, volunteered to join the unit.

It was the first all-women army unit in Asia and was named the Rani of Jhansi regiment in honor of the Indian queen, who had led the unsuccessful Sepoy Mutiny - a rebellion against the British in 1857. Dr. Sahgal was given the title of Colonel but was addressed as Captain throughout her life. She married Prem Kumar Sahgal, who was captured by the Japanese Army while he was serving as a Captain in the British Indian Army in Malaysia. Captain Prem Sahgal served as the military secretary to Bose for a while and was later given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the INA.

In Singapore, Bose declared an independent Indian Government in exile in October 1943. Thousands of Indian soldiers who served in the British Army and were captured on the war front in Europe by the Germans, and the Japanese in Southeast Asia, constituted the bulk of the INA. At its peak, the troops numbered 50,000 soldiers. Netaji negotiated with Nazis and Japan's Army to secure the release of the Indian prisoners of war and sought political support, but not from their armed forces. His association with the Axis powers ruffled the British Government.

• Statue of Rani of Janshi in a garden in her birthplace in Northern India.

After vigorous training, the Rani Jhansi regiment marched through the jungles of Burma (Myanmar) toward the Indian border in the Northeastern state of Assam. It was a dangerous and tortuous journey that had to be abandoned as the British blocked the advance of the Japanese Army in North-East India. Bose had hoped that Japan would succeed and pave the way for his passage into India, inspiring the countrymen to join hands.

Captain Lakshmi led her troops in retreat through the rain-soaked, muddy jungles. Britain prevailed as it had air power to support their much bigger, better-equipped troops. The INA headquarters had moved to Rangoon in Burma, and when Japan surrendered in 1945, it was the end of a heroic effort. She was captured with her troops and was placed under house arrest in New Delhi. Bose ensured that Captain Sahgal and her troops had adequate means to return to India. To escape from being captured by the British, Bose boarded a plane in Singapore, which crash-landed on August 18, 1945, in Formosa (Taiwan).

With much fanfare, the British Government began trials of the INA soldiers for treason against the King of England. It was held at the Red Fort in New Delhi. Colonel Sahgal, a Hindu, G.S. Dhillon, a Sikh, and Shah Nawaz Khan, a Muslim, were the three persons put on trial first. When the Indian masses learned of the efforts of the INA under Bose, there was a huge uproar across the country. The trial began on November 5, 1946, and a nationwide hartal (strike) was held by the vast majority of the population. In the following days, widespread riots occurred in different parts of the country. All three accused were found guilty and sentenced at the end of December 1946, but the British Government released them a few days later, fearing major protests and difficult-to-control violence. The sailors of the Royal Indian Navy began a strike in February 1946, and others joined at other harbors. The British realized that there was a potential for a mutiny beyond their capacity to extinguish, as they had in 1857.

Documents made public in recent years, first-hand information provided by compatriots, and key figures of the British Government, reveal convincingly that INA and the influence of Bose played a crucial role in the hasty British retreat. It is well covered with convincing evidence in the book by Mr. Ghose, in the chapter INA and Independence (2). Looking from that perspective, Dr. Lakshmi Sahgal's imprint must be acknowledged.

Dr. Sahagal was under house arrest from May 1945 to March 1946 and was acquitted after the trials at the Red Fort. When she returned to Calcutta by train, there was no one to receive her (1). When she got into a taxi, the driver recognized and greeted her with utmost respect. Lt. Colonel Sahgal and Dr.Sahgal returned to civilian life in the northern city of Kanpur. She opened a clinic primarily to serve the impoverished.

Dr. Lakshmi Sahgal did not confine herself to medical practice; she showed up wherever there was a need for medical care. In 1971, when Pakistan's civil war forced millions of Bangladeshis into refugee camps in India, she served energetically and with compassion. Similarly, she was at the forefront of assisting the injured in the Union Carbide Chemical Factory explosion in Bhopal in 1984. In the same year, when Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh guards, she intervened bravely to protect the Sikh shopkeepers in her neighborhood from the enraged Hindu mobs.

She was the founding member of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) to advance the education and emancipation of women so that they could overcome the prevailing social norms and support themselves independently. In 1998, the President of India honored her with the third-highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan.

Politically, Dr.Sahgal leaned to the left, and her empathy for the poor drew her to the communist party. In her youth, Edgar Snow's book “Red Star Over China” had a profound and lifelong impact on her. Another influence was her maternal aunt Suhasini Nambiar, a radical who had spent many years in Germany. ( Suhasini was the sister of Sarojini Naidu, a renowned English Poet, a senior member of the Congress Party, and a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi ).

Dr. Sahagl joined the Marxist division of the Communist Party of India (CPI-M) and was elected to the Rajya Sabha ( Upper house of the Indian Central Government ). She was an atheist and genuinely believed in some of the fundamental Communist doctrines that weaker sections of the population required the active support of a government, and those in power should not seek wealth. She stated, “My way of thinking is that with a communist mindset, I never wanted to earn a lot of money, acquire property or wealth.” She lived a life adhering to that conviction. It should be of interest to the readers that the Communist Party gained power in the Southern State of Kerala through the ballot box; the party still participates in the Indian elections, but its influence is negligible.

Propped up by the left-leaning opposition political parties, she contested for the ceremonial position of the President of the Indian Union, well aware that she had no chance against the ruling party's candidate, beloved scientist Dr. A.P. J. Abdul Kalam.

Though her mother tongue was Tamil, she was fluent in English and Hindi. She was a good singer; her rendering of the Nobel Laureate Tagore's original lyrics of the Indian National Anthem was recorded by the Gramophone Company of India before India gained independence and is preserved. Interested persons can find it on YouTube.

The following information about Dr.Laxmi Sahgal and her immediate family members should interest Indian readers. Her parents were both from the southern state of Kerala; her father was a Tamilian, and her mother was a Malayali, and they spoke Tamil and Malayalam, respectively. Mrinalini, her sister, married Vikram Sarabhai, a nuclear scientist from Gujarat. Her daughter, Subhashini Ali, a staunch communist, married a well-known Muslim film director, and their son is an accomplished film producer and director in Bollywood.

Addendum:
Dr.Lakshmi Sahgal's story was well-known to me when I was in India, but it faded from my memory. My interest revived after reading her Obituary column in the Economist issue of August 4, 2012.

1. Fay, Ward Peter: The Forgotten Army, India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945. University of Michigan, 1995.
2. Ghose, Chandrachur: The Untold Story of An Inconvenient Nationalist, Penguin Random House, India, 2022.

• Subash Chandra Bose was harshly criticized by journalists, politicians, and intellectuals in his lifetime and after his tragic end. Western Countries and the Indian Congress Party, which governed India after independence, faulted him for seeking assistance from Nazi Germany and Japan. There is more to the story than that obvious fact. The above-listed books are good sources for interested readers.

Many modern medical organizations use the Staff carried by Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, and that of Hermes (Mercury in Roman Mythology) as insigne. Some logos of modern medicine are rooted in archaic pagan myths, and though they appear incongruous in the twenty-first century, I contend that it is appropriate to retain them.

The relationship between the Greeks and Romans varied over the centuries. In 146 B.C.E., the Romans completed the conquest of Greece, but they continued certain traditions and adopted the Greek pantheon. In 431 B.C.E., a temple was raised to the healer, Apollo, hoping to mitigate the plague. In 294 B.C.E., the statue of Asclepius was brought from Epidaurus to Rome, and a temple-hospital, Asclepieia, was built in his honor on an island in the Tiber.

Many Hellenistic beliefs and practices were retained until Emperor Constantine laid the foundation of Byzantine Christian civilization in 325 A.D. * (Some images are from the photographs taken by us during a ten-day-long bus trip to Greece in April 2024).

Statue of Asclepius in the Museum at Epidaurus, Greece.

In Homer’s Iliad, written in the 8th century B.C.E., Asclepius’s name appears as a man who attended to the wounded soldiers. By the time of Hippocrates (460-359 B.C.E.), the status of Asclepius rose to that of a semi-god. He was the son of the Greek god of physicians, Apollo, who possessed several other powers. Hippocrates initiated the process to remove religious superstitions and myths associated with healing, but did not abandon Asclepius as the God of medicine.

The Hippocratic Oath begins, ” I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygiaea, …, making them witnesses that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.”

Socrates ( 469-399 B.C.E ) is esteemed as the foremost Western philosopher. He discussed and debated with his students to elucidate the moral and ethical values, but was indifferent to the prevailing religious beliefs and practices. Yet, paradoxically, he invoked Asclepius before ingesting hemlock poison.

THE LAST HOURS OF SOCRATES

Echecrates, a philosopher, asks Phaedo, one of the students of Plato, to narrate the last hours of Socrates. The dialogues, named after Phaedo, are narrated by him to a fellow student, Crito. Phaedo witnessed the scene, but Plato was not present due to an illness. Socrates did not write his musings and beliefs; he speaks to us through the “ Dialogues” authored by Plato ( 5: pg 113 ):

Socrates: I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
Crito: The debt shall be paid. Is there anything else?
Phadeo: There was no answer to the question, but in a minute or two, a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him. His eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may call the wisest, justest, and best of all the men I have ever known.

The Death of Socrates, by Artist Jacques-Louis David, was painted in 1787 and depicts Socrates addressing his disciples before ingesting the hemlock. Painting presently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

During excavations, over three hundred Asclepian temples were discovered. The one at Epidaurus discovered in 1822 is the largest; it was the first temple in which Asclepius was worshipped as a god, beginning in the 5th Century B.C.E. There is a temple on the southern slope of the Acropolis of Athens dating to around 420 B.C.E. Beyond Athens, temples were built in secluded, airy, and wooded areas, conducive to physical and spiritual healing. Dogs and non-venomous snakes roamed freely in the temple halls and adjoining dormitories where pilgrims could sleep. “The snake was often used as a symbol of the guardian deity of the temple or home, perhaps because it was believed to be the soul of the dead.” (3, page 179).
The therapeutic regimen was holistic and would start with cleansing baths, purgation with cathartics to purify the body, fasting, and simple diets with gradual escalation. Meditation and regular exercises were part of the regimen; gymnasiums, stadiums for sports, and open-air theatres were in the temple complex. In essence, promoting a healthy lifestyle as in modern times was one of the cornerstones of the treatment.

Ruins of the Temple of Asclepios.

One unique practice was ” incubatio,” the practice of temple sleep. The pilgrims slept in the temples hoping that Asclepius or one of his healing children would appear in their sleep. The priests would interpret the dream and prescribe treatments. Minor surgical procedures such as draining abscesses and removing foreign bodies were performed by inducing a dream-like state with soporific substances such as opium. The process was termed “Enkoimesis.” At the temple in Epidaurus, there are about seventy statements ascribed to the patients outlining their positive experiences. On three large boards dated 350 B.C.E., patients’ names are listed with their case histories and favorable outcomes.

Surgical Instruments recovered in the ruins are displayed in the Museum at Epidaurus.

Open-air theatre and stadium for artists and athletes, Epidaurus.

MODERN USE OF CADUCEUS & THE STAFF OF ASCLEPIUS

CADUCEUS AS AN INSIGNIA

The caduceus has two snakes entwined on a staff with wings spread out at the top.

Cauduces was often inscribed as an identifying mark at the end of medical and non-medical books. For example, I came across an image with Caduceus embossed on a 16th-century Augsburg Guild of Bakers logo with a gold pretzel on a red shield. In the book review section of the New England Journal of Medicine, the reviewer traced the story of Cauduces from 1818. ( The Golden Wand of Medicine, Author, William D Sharpe, published in 1993).

When an ambassador to a king’s court wore a Caduceus embossed badge, it was considered a sign of peace. On May 31, 1862, in Winchester, Virginia, during the Civil War, a person wearing a chevron-shaped badge with a Caduceus was declared to be a non-combatant.

Interestingly, one physician wrote in an editorial of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1918 that they should request the state legislature to assign Cauduceus exclusively to physicians. Another suggested that doctors be allowed to utilize the emblem on their cars, giving them the right-of-way on the roads. I do not know if it was pursued in the state assembly, but if they did, it was unsuccessful.

Gold embroidered Cauduces is the insignia of the U.S. Hospital Corps Officers. The U.S. Air Force Medical Service, the U.S. Public Health Services, the Navy Medical Center, and the Navy Corpsman have the Caduceus incorporated in their insignia. The flag of the U.S. Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Services features the Caduceus. Presently, it is also used as a logo by some commercial medical entities – for example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Insurance Company.

The staff of Asclepius is generally accepted now as a symbol representing physicians and professional organizations. In 1902, the Journal of Medical Association (JAMA) switched from Cauduces to the Staff as its logo.

Staff of Asclepius across a quill-pen: Logo of New England Journal of Medicine

Socrates refused to plead guilty or seek divine intervention to save his life. He could have acquitted himself by offering an apology, but chose not to. In Plato’s “Apology,” Socrates addresses the citizens and refers to God several times, but not specifically to Asclepius: "Men of Athens, I honor and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy … and I believe that to this day, no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to God.” (5, page 18).

Socrates and Plato believed in reincarnation, which was considered a myth then and remains so among the believers of the Abrahamic religions. His instruction to Crito, I believe, was sincere and not meant to be a pun. Socrates had probably followed the practice of offering a bird or an animal to propitiate the gods. Similarly, while taking steps to remove religion from medicine, Hippocrates had faith in Asclepius.

It is germane to question the necessity to retain the logos that are based on myths. Quite a few philosophers, theologians, and scholars from ancient times to the present believed in the existence of cosmic phenomena not perceivable by the five senses. Even with the availability of advanced diagnostic tools at our disposal, and despite the best efforts of accomplished scientists and skilled physicians, many succumb to ailments prematurely. Today, as in ancient times, the faithful appeal to God for solace and miraculous cures. Retaining the insignia based on ancient myths, I contend, represents a continuum from the past and reminds us of our debt to the ancient seers for their contribution with the limited means available to them. Their emphasis on the importance of leading a simple, healthy lifestyle is as valid today as it was in the past.

As to why serpents were utilized as symbols is a relevant question. The ancient Greeks believed that snakes possessed healing powers and power to resurrect.

In the book Power of Myth, Professor Joseph Campbell sums it up well. “The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow. “The snake, in many cultures, even today, is feared and revered. The serpents represent the power of life engaged in the field of time and death, yet eternally alive. The world is but a shadow – the falling skin.” ( 2, page 45).

In the context of myths unrelated to medicine, let us consider the Seal on one side of the dollar bill, which shows a pyramid with an eye at the top. Professor Campbell explains: “The pyramid has four sides. These are the four points of the compass…. when you are down on the lower levels of the pyramid, you will be on one side or the other. But when you get up to the top, the points all come together, there, the eye of God opens.” (2, pages 24-25).

Bibliography:

1. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Editorial, Volume 189.7. 2. Campbell, Joseph: The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. Double Day, New York, 1988.
3. Durant, Will: The Life of Greece, The Story of Civilization, Volume 2, MJF Books, New York, 1939.
4. Durant Will: Ceaser and Christ, The Story of Civilization, Volume 3, MJF Books, New York, 1944.
5. Eliot, Charles W: The Apology, Phaedo and Crito of Plato, The Harvard Classics, P.F.Collier & Son, Corporation, New York, 1909.
6. Sharpe, William D: The Golden Wand of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 328, May 13th, 1993.

In a speech delivered in Manchester, England in 1867, Thomas Carlyle, renowned Scottish author, historian, political thinker and philosopher of the Victorian era made the above comment. The burgeoning Industrial Revolution and economics were the topics. The attendees were barons of the textile industry and aristocrats of other businesses. In the audience was an imposing, urbane and wealthy Indian, Jamsetji Tata, who wrote down the above statement of Carlyle in a scrap book. This anecdote is cited by R.M.Lala, one of the biographers of Jamsetji Tata (1839-1905).

The idea of constructing a steel mill in India took root in his mind and came to fruition early in the twentieth century. Preceding his successful venture into the steel industry, he forayed into other important industrial projects in the final decades of the nineteenth century. When India was a British colony, he laid the foundation for its industrialization. Tata and Sons Private Limited, which was established in India by Jamsetji in 1887, has grown like a banyan tree with deep roots and areoles spread across the globe and well into the twenty-first century. The founder envisioned the company to create industries that operated with "corporate social responsibility and ethical governance." From inception, philanthropy has been a cornerstone and coexisted with triumphs of the conglomerate.

According to the Tata website listed below in the bibliography, "66% of the equity shares of the company are held by philanthropic trusts, which support education, health, livelihood generation, art and culture". The Washington Post proclaimed Jamsetji a "merchant prince, philanthropist, scholar, and philosopher."

Tata & Sons, through several independent enterprises has footprints in nearly one hundred countries. It has presence, for instance, in U.S.A through Tata Motors which acquired Jaguar- Land Rover and Tata Consulting services, and in Europe it acquired Tetly Tea and Corus Steel. In India, Tata products are ubiquitous, from remote tribal ares to five star hotels.

This essay presents a concise story of an industrial icon, who, I believe, was the most distinguished subject in the vast British Colonial Empire that ruled over an estimated one quarter of the land and its hapless inhabitants.The adage that "sun never set” on the British Empire was not a mere metaphor.

After he graduated from college in 1858, it is estimated that Jamsetji's travels and overseas stay would add up to fifteen years of his life. To narrate his extraordinary and inspiring life, I will begin with one of Jamsetji's momentous journeys.

On July 27, 1893, Jamsetji boarded the Empress of India on a voyage from Yokohama, Japan to Vancouver, Canada. His final destination was Chicago, where the Columbian Exposition and World Fair was inaugurated in 1892, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the new world. The exhibits at the World Fair was open to the visitors from May 1893 and to end of October. His objective was to apprise himself of the latest developments and concepts in the industrial world.

En route to Chicago on that ship was a Hindu ascetic, Swami Vivekananda, to address the First World Parliament of Religions. The gathering brought together representatives from Eastern and Western religions to elucidate the core principles of their spiritual traditions.

Jamsetji and the Swami knew of each other but met for the first time on that journey. The two men were the most important figures of pre-independent India in the second half of the nineteenth century. While the reasons for the trip were poles apart, their mission was to uplift the Indians smothering under the colonial rule in different arenas.

The cost of the trip for the twenty-nine-year-old Swami was financed by well-wishers and the Raja of Khetri. Jamsetji and Swami Vivekananda met and discussed ways to initiate new educational programs and awaken the spirit of the impoverished Indians suffocating under the British Colonial rulers. Five years later, the tycoon wrote a letter recalling their conversations on that journey. The following is the excerpt from the letter.

Dear Swami Vivekananda, November 23, 1898.
I trust you remember me as a fellow traveler on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall, at this moment, your views on the growth in India's ascetic spirit and the duty not of destroying, but diverting into proper channels. I recall these ideas in conversation with my scheme of research halls for men dominated by the spirit. They should live with ordinary decency and devote their time(to) cultivating natural and humanistic sciences.

- Signed Jamsetji N.Tata

Referring to the Indian Institute of Sciences founded by Jamsetji, Swami Vivekananda wrote in Prabuddha Bharat magazine in 1899 : " No idea more potent for good to the whole nation has seen the light of the day in modern times."

EARLY YEARS

Jamsetji Tata, the only son of Nusserwanji Tata, was born on March 3rd 1839, in Navasari in Gujarat and was raised in the Persia's Zoroastrian religious priestly tradition. After the Navjot ceremony, he was inducted as a "Navar" into the priesthood. A pious man, he adhered to and practiced the teachings of the Prophet Zarathustra ( Zoroaster), who founded the religion sometime between 1500- 800 B.C.E. * In India, Zoroastrians are popularly called " Parsis, " reflecting their migration from Iran after Islamic take over of the nation in the 7th century.
Jamsetji's life is an embodiment of the following core principles of Zoroasterianism: " Humata, Hukta, Huvarastha (Good thoughts, Good words, Good Deeds). Jamsetji incorporated this motto on the Tata Crest.

High School education was in the native Gujarati language. In 1852, his father moved to Bombay and enrolled Jamsetji in a college affiliated with Elphinstone Institute. There was no university to confer a degree, and in 1858, upon passing the examination, he was declared a "Green Scholar." He developed a passion for English literature that remained throughout his life. While still in college, as was the prevailing custom, the family arranged his marriage to Berabai, five years junior to him. His first son, Dorabji, was born in 1859, and his second son, Ratanji, in 1871.

Jamsetji's father was engaged in import-export businesses with interests in the far east and England. Cotton and opium were exported to China; silk, tea, copper, and gold were imported. In 1858, Nusserwanji sent his son to Shangai to open a branch, and a year later, a new firm, Jamsetji & Ardeshir, was established in Hong Kong. In 1864, he was sent to London to float an Indian Bank and to represent a firm established by his father, Nusserwanji with a partner Kalyandas.

INDIAN COTTON & TEXTILES
Jamsetji's first success as an industrialist was through textile industry. Therefore, I will present an account of that aspect before turning to his pioneering efforts to introduce the steel industry in India, despite opposition from the British Government.
Sven Beckert, in his scholarly book, Empire of the Cotton, states that " About 5,000 years ago, people on the Indian subcontinent, ... first discovered the possibility of making thread out of cotton fibers." Among the ruins of the prehistoric Indus Valley Civilization ( 3250-2750 B.C.E. ) fragments of cotton textiles were found, and the Vedic Scriptures (1500-1200 BCE) " allude to cotton spinning and weaving." In the American and African continents, there is evidence that clothes were woven from cotton by the natives centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. However, in recorded history, artisans from the Indian subcontinent were acknowledged as the premier weavers of cotton textiles. Greek Historian Herodotus (484- 425 BCE) and nine centuries later Italian Traveller Marco Polo (1254-1324 A.D), admired the fine clothes which were exported to the west. For several millennia, according to Beckert, the people of the Indian sub-continent were the world's leading manufacturers of fine cotton textiles.

After colonizing India, Britain took over the cotton industry systematically and reigned supreme for over a century. "... British imperialism had triumphed not just by conquest or deception on a grand scale but ... by ruthlessly suppressing dissent, executing rebels and deserters and chopping off of thumbs of skilled weavers so they could not produce the fine cloth that made Britain's manufacturers look tawdry." (7)

Cotton from plantations in the Southern United States, India, Egypt, and China was delivered to the merchants in Manchester, Liverpool, and Lancashire, where textile mills churned out yarn that was exported across the world, generating enormous wealth. It was during the four year stay in England from 1864-1868 that Jamsetji visited the famous cotton mills to educate himself of the advances in the textile machines. It was on that trip that he attended Thomas Carlyle's speech.

After four years in England, he was back home, and in 1868, he purchased a rundown oil mill with some partners, converted it into Alexandra Clothing Mill, and sold it for a profit. In 1874, Jamsetji went full steam to develop new textile mills. During the cotton boom, Bombay was called the City of Gold and Cottonopolis of India. He contemplated building new mills, but reviewing the scene, he surmised that Bombay was not ideal for a new mill. He surveyed the landscape and selected to construct a new mill in Nagpur, which was in the cotton farming belt and close to coal mines. He lived in Nagpur to oversee the construction and stayed until production began in 1877. After the mill was profitable, he entrusted the job to a reliable lieutenant and returned to Bombay.

In 1886, he purchased an unprofitable mill in Bombay, retooled it, and inaugurated it on New Year's day, 1877, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of India; the mill was named Empress Mill.

Lancashire, with more advanced equipment and higher-quality cotton, generated finer and superior yarn compared to the Indian variety. The price of the fine yarn and cloth sold by the British to the Indian subjects was steep. Therefore, Jamsetji explored methods to produce finer quality yarn to compete with Lancashire. On another trip to England in 1873, he spent time in Egypt and learned that long-staple cotton grown was of better quality, and that the amount of cotton produced from it was much higher per acre. Jamsetji imported Egyptian cotton and new machinery from the United States to spin fine yarn in his mills.

Stung by competition and challenge to their monopoly, the British government placed numerous obstacles including high excise duties on Indian products. It was vehemently opposed by Jamsetji and he succeeded in lowering the duty. Besides, high freight charges by British-owned P& O, Australian Lloyd, and Italian Rubinatto were an encumbrance for exporting goods to Japan and China. England persuaded the Italian and Austrian shippers not to provide insurance coverage to Jamsetji's company. Defiant, Jamsetji promoted the Japanese company Nippon and even started his own Tata Shipping Lane. Finally, in 1896, he negotiated with all the parties to achieve lower freight charges. Ultimately he had to give up exporting to the far east as it was not cost-effective.

Two new mills, one in Kurla and later one in Ahmedabad under the banner of " Swadeshi Mills," were added. (Swadeshi means own country). Jamsetji was an early proponent of homemade products. As the Britishers were rivals, he floated the new Company, Tata and Sons, with his two sons as partners and several other investors, primarily from the Indian Royalty. The enormous wealth thus generated was shared with shareholders; as Tata & Sons owned nearly 40% of the shares initially, the family earned a significant percentage of the profits.

In addition to the wealth he amassed in the textile industry, Jamsetji inherited the entire estate after his father passed away in 1886. Projects to help the countless millions of the Indian populace became the overarching purpose of his life. A contemporary writer commented that " business was no longer his business, the nation was his business." He traveled in Europe, the U.S.A., and Japan to acquire intricate knowledge of the industries and envisioned establishing several projects at home. Following are a few of the prominent ones.

SILK INDUSTRY:

Sericulture in India was an ailing industry. While traveling in Japan, Jamsetji studied the silk industry and introduced similar cultivation and production methods in Bangalore. The project initiated in 1894 was highly successful, and in 1904, Tata Silk Farms were handed over to the government.

STEEL INDUSTRY:
At the World Fair in Chicago, numerous new inventions from around the world were displayed, but American products dominated. Locomotives, machinery tools, and electricity were in focus. Thomas Edison, with his DC ( Direct Current) and Westinghouse AC (Alternating Current), which was invented by Nikola Tesla, bid to supply the electricity to the Fair. In what has been termed "The War of Currents, " AC prevailed. The knowledge he acquired on that visit was utilized to initiate plans to construct steel mills and hydroelectric projects.
During subsequent visits to the U.S.A., Jamsetji toured the steel mills in Pittsburgh, conferred with an expert, Julian Kennedy, who was a consultant to Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. He engaged an engineer, Charles Perin, who was recommended by Mr. Julian Kennedy, to facilitate the construction of steel mills in India. Perin and his team toured several parts of India and recommended Sakchi village, which was in a remote location in Bihar, where there were large coal and iron ore deposits. Over a decade later, in 1911, steel rolled out for the first time. A new city emerged at that location and was fittingly named Jamshedpur.

HYDROELECTRIC POWER GENERATION:

There is reason to believe that Jamsetji was aware of the first commercially workable Hydroelectric power plant built on the Fox River in Wisconsin in 1882. After witnessing hydroelectric power generation at Niagara Falls, Jamsetji decided to explore a similar project in India. On one of his visits to the U.S., he met the industry's pioneer, George Westinghouse, at his residence, "Solitude." After extensive research by stalwarts from India and abroad, Lonwala in the Western Ghats Hills was selected because that region received heavy monsoon rainfall and had a large catchment area. Unable to attract the British or any foreign investors, Jamsetji raised the capital from Indians, as he had done for the textile mills. Three large lakes were linked to a river to ensure a constant flow of water, and Walwhan Dam was constructed, creating an artificial waterfall. It was hailed as an achievement surpassing the Aswan Dam built in 1902. In 1915, well over a decade after Jamsetji dreamed of the project, the textile mills began to use hydroelectric power. Esplanade, the estate home built by the patriarch, was the first residence in India that was lit with electricity from that source.

MUMBAI- BOMBAY:

The Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, in published in 1972, opined - " A pioneer in town planning schemes, Jamsetji Tata, was responsible for a modernized Bombay City."

Mumbai was the original name of a collection of fishing villages on the west coast of India when it fell into the hands of England. It was part of a dowry from Catherine of Braganza when she wed King Charles II. The British changed the name to Bombay, and it was the official name till 1995, when the original name, Mumbai, was restored. Jamsetji acquired large tracts of land as he had the foresight to envision a megacity emerging from the three islands and villages that constituted Mumbai in the late nineteenth century. He toyed with a plan to create an "Oriental Venice" and many other schemes, but there were too many obstacles to carry them out.
British clubs and hotels posted signs - " Indians and dogs not allowed." Jamsetji was expelled from Watson's Hotel in Bombay. That humiliation led Jamsetji to build a luxury hotel comparable to the best in the world. (7) Incidentally, the Taj Hotel was ransacked by militants from Pakistan in 2006. It was restored to its original state by Mr.Ratan Tata.

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The Tata family's contribution to India is unsurpassed on the educational front. In 1892, Jamsetji launched a scheme for higher education by establishing the " J.N.Tata Endowment." It provided funds for deserving Indian Students to qualify to serve in the Indian Civil Service (I.C.S.), and to study law, medicine, and allied sciences. Recognizing that maternal and infant mortality was very high, the Endowment awarded scholarships to two women to study in England to obtain diplomas in Obstetrics from the Royal College of Surgeons. The Endowment continues to provide scholarships even today, and the graduates take pride in calling themselves J.N.Tata Scholars.

Jamsetji's vision for higher education was on a grand scale. He persuaded a young professor, Burjorji Padshah, to tour educational institutes in Europe and America and recommend a suitable model for India. The professor traveled for a year and a half and recommended Johns Hopkins University. Dr.William Ramsey of the Royal Society of England was invited by Jamsetji for consultation and arranged his travel to various locations in India. Dr.Ramsey recommended Bangalore as the ideal location to construct a scientific research institute. Incidentally, Dr. Ramsey was knighted and won the Nobel Prize for inventing Neon. When the proposal was presented to the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, in 1898, he asked Jamsetji, " But, where are the students qualified enough to enter such a university? " and added, "...if they pass out, where are the employment opportunities?"

To overcome Lord Curzon's objection, Jamsetji traveled to London again and patiently waited several days to meet the Secretary of State for India, Lord Hamilton, who approved the plan. That trip which began in May 1902, lasted eight months, including visits to Germany, England, and twice to America. After a short visit to New York in late September, he returned to England for a few days and a month later, on October 26, returned to London. The purpose was to acquire the equipment needed to construct the Taj Hotel and for the other projects that were in progress. He returned to Bombay in December 1902.

FINAL DAYS

As can be expected, frequent travels and hectic activity took a toll on his health. His physicians recommended that he return to Europe to recuperate and for treatment in a better environment. On May 17, 1903, " he cried out for his son, where is Dorab, where is Dorab? The next day, Dorab and his wife Meherbai rushed back from Vienna. "Where were you? Where were you? He asked Meherbai and gently stroked the face of Dorab. He passed away on the 19th of May in Germany and was laid to rest in England according to Zoroastrian religious rites.

In the preface to the biography, R.M. Lala commented that "Jamsetji was a man who saw tomorrow." He did not live to witness the fruits of the seeds he planted. In Jamshedpur, the city named in his honor, stands a statue with an inscription. " If you seek a monument, look around."

Times of India on May 24, 1904, paid the following tribute: "His sturdy strength of character prevented him from fawning on any man however great, for he himself was great in his own way, greater than most people realized. He sought no honor and claimed no privilege. But the advancement of India and her myriad people was with him an absorbing passion."

One of Swami Vivekananda's American disciples met Jamsetji in America and wrote a letter to Swami that he should meet the industrialist when possible. Swami responded enthusiastically that he would, but that was not to be. Swami sadly passed away in 1902 at the age of thirty-nine. Had they met, the two men would have reminisced about their voyage of 1893 and rejoiced that their vision was on the path to be materialized. Swami Vivekananda was the first to introduce yoga and meditation in the Hindu tradition and laid the foundation stone for a " Universal Temple" in SanFrancisco in 1900.

Dorabji (1859- 1942), the eldest son, and his brother Ratanji (1871-1918) took over and managed different components of the large conglomerate. Under Dorabji, steel production, power generation, and the science institute were launched.

Sir Ratanji was a connoisseur of art and had collected many artworks, but of greater interest was to support the poor and oppressed. He established the Ratanji Tata Trust to dispense funds for charitable endeavors. Jamsetji, along with intellectuals of the Parsi community were present when the Congress Party was launched, but the Tata clan did not enter politics. Ratanji donated funds to the London School of Economics (LSE) to establish a chair to find solutions to alleviate poverty in India.

Jamsetji several times declined the offer of Baronetcy by the British Government. The patriarch Jamsetji and his sons deeply cared for India and strived hard to serve with their independent vision. Their successors J.R.D. Tata (1938-1991) and Ratan Tata (1937-2024) branched out into numerous new projects.

Ratan Tata graduated from Cornell University of Architecture and attended an Advanced Management Program at Harvard. He began his career at Tata Steel in 1962 and took over as the Chairman of the Tata House in 1991. During his tenure at the helm, he invested in over forty start-ups. Though a citizen of India, he donated 50 million dollars to his alma mater, Cornell University, 50 million dollars to Harvard, and 60 million to U.C. San Diego for research.

Bibliography:

1. Beckert, Sven: Empire of cotton, a global history, First Vintage Books, 2004.

2. F.R. Harris: J.N.Tata, A Chronicle of his life, Oxford University Press, 1925. It was reprinted by Blackie and Sons in 1958.

3. India Under Curzon and After: Lovat Fraser, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1911.

4. R.K. Nalla: For the love of India, The Life and Times of Jamsetji Tata. Penguin Books, India. ( In this book, material from the book listed below (2) was a significant source. I was unable to secure that book).

5. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

6. Symons, Julian: Thomas Carlyle, House of Strauss,U.K, 1952.

7. Tharoor, Shashi: An Era of Darkness, The British Empire in India, Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2016.

• https://www.tata.com/about-us/tata-group-our-heritage/tata-titans/sir-ratan-tata

• * Zoroastrian Religion began in the Avestan period of Persia, probably around 2nd millennium B.C.E. During the Achaemenid period of Cyrus the Great (559 B.C.E. ), Zoroastrianism was the state religion and flourished until the Sasanian Empire that ruled Iran from 224 to 651 A.D. Islamic conquest in 651, forced them out and most sought asylum in India. There is a story, well known to the Indians, about the first Parsi migrants; when their leader asked the king permission to settle in India, the King is reported to have declined, stating that already his kingdom was overpopulated. The Parsi leader obtained a glass of milk, mixed sugar to demonstrate to the king that his people would sweeten the kingdom without causing over overflow. Impressed by that gesture, the king welcomed them. They prospered in their adopted land and contributed immensely, out of proportion to their small numbers. Ironically and sadly, over the centuries their population dwindled steadily, and is projected to become extinct in not so not-so-distant future. The current estimate is that there are between 100,000 to 200,00 Zoroastrians in the entire world, mostly in India. There are some in Iran and the U.S.A., and a few scattered in other countries. Zubin Mehta, the former conductor of the Los Angeles and New York Symphonies, is probably the best-known Zoroastrian outside India.

• Ratan Tata, who passed away on October 9th, 2024, was the last person of the clan at the helm of the company and may well be the last one as he was a bachelor and left no descendants.

The above photograph shows the eleven volumes of the ” Story of Civilization” authored by a distinguished and well-known historian, William Durant (1885-1981). His wife, Ariel Durant (1898-1981), co-authored the last volume, "The Age of Napoleon.” I have placed the above image to honor them for their extraordinary and mammoth effort. Each volume, excluding the bibliography, notes, and index, has 700 to 900 pages. I purchased the books in 1992 but did not have a chance to read them in earnest until two years ago. The narratives are extensive and contain in-depth analysis and the author’s opinions; I recommend the books to readers interested in history.

The Story of Civilization Durant, William, MJF Books, New York.
A short, conclusive narrative was published under “The Lessons of History.” The volumes were published between 1935 and 1975.

In my High School years, between 1959 and 1962, I came across the book, “Little Known Facts about Well-known People” by Dale Carnegie. As I recall, the essays were brief anecdotes of eminent persons. Alexander Dumas, Cleopatra, Josephine, the favorite wife of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and Mahatma Gandhi are a few names that pop up in my mind.

Countless extraordinary, accomplished persons are honored for their accomplishments and acclaimed by the media. Nobel laureates receive publicity for a few weeks at best, are felicitated in Oslo, and are soon forgotten. Often, I became aware of the stories of such persons in the obituary columns of newspapers or magazines. Many notable persons of the past and quite a few in our midst do not get well-deserved recognition. With that in mind, I chose to share with the readers the stories of some eminent persons in the “Little-Known or Forgotten Heroes” category. Common to all the heroes is that they had to overcome a variety of challenges – financial hardships, racial and gender discrimination, envy of colleagues, violence, and threats to their safety and lives.

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“The duty of man is plain and simple, and consists but of two points; his duty to God, which every man must feel; and his duty to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.”

“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angles know of us.” – Thomas Paine.

On November 30, 1774, a ship from England arrived in Philadelphia with close to hundred passengers. Most of them were indentured laborers, who had to commit themselves to serve until the cost for their transportation was paid off. One passenger was quite ill and had to be carried out from the ship on a stretcher. In his pocket was a letter written by Benjamin Franklin, to Richard Bache, his son-in-law, stating that the “bearer of the letter is well recommended to me as an ingenious young man,” who desires to settle down in Pennsylvania; that person was Thomas Pain. (he had added the letter “e” to his name in 1768).

Tom Paine lived up to be “an ingenious young man” as Ben Franklin’s note predicted. Sixteen months after his arrival, English immigrant Tom Paine was a household name across the thirteen colonies.

On January 10, 1776, Pennsylvania Magazine published a pamphlet under the title, “Common Sense.” It was written by Paine but the author was listed as an anonymous Englishman. Written in clear and poetic prose, Paine gave a clarion call to the colonists to pursue independence. Once the author’s identity was revealed, Tom Paine’s arguments justifying Revolution reverberated across the land. George Washington commented , “Common Sense has sound logic and unanswerable reasoning.”

Below are a few inspiring phrases from the pamphlet:
“… I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.”

“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”

“There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than it’s primary planet; and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverse the common order of nature, it is evident that they belong to two different systems: England to Europe and America to itself.”

“Nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration of independence”

Paine considered “Plain Truth” as the title for the pamphlet but per the suggestion of Dr.Benjamin Rush, changed it to “Common Sense. ” About fifty editions were published and it is believed that majority of the population of the colonies read the essay. If extrapolated to the current population, it would amount to 15 million copies and one of the largest circulated publication of all times.

This essay will cover Paine’s peripatetic years in England till 1774, and the twelve years in America from 1775 to 1787.

EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND (1737-1774)

His father, Joseph Pain, was a tenant farmer and corset maker earning just enough to run the family. Tom Paine studied at the local School until he was twelve years old and gave up formal education to serve as an apprentice to his father. When Tom turned sixteen, he escaped from home to work as a privateer sailor but his father traced his whereabouts and brought him back. In 1756, Pain left home again, to join as a privateer soldier in the British Army. He spent the next sixteen years moving from pillar to post with brief stints as a school teacher, stay maker, and as an employee in a tobacco store. The store was run by Mr. Samuel Ollie and his wife and Paine lodged in their premises. When the owner passed away, Paine joined his widow as a partner. Later on, he married her daughter Elizabeth Ollie in 1769. Furthermore, he took loans to add a grocery store but the business venture failed"; he finally conceded, “trade I don’t understand.”

The last job he held was as an excise officer in London; though he worked with integrity, in 1774, he was dismissed, allegedly, for not showing up to work without permission. However, Paine made an impression on the excise commissioner, George Lewis Scott, who introduced him to Benjamin Franklin. That fortuitous meeting would shape Paine’s future, and in no small measure, that of the United States of America.

Tom Paine’s personal life was unfulfilling as well. In 1759, he married a servant girl, who died in child birth two years later. The second marriage to Elizabeth Ollie ended up in divorce in 1774 and his life came to a standstill. When Franklin suggested that he should move to America, he accepted the advice. Paine sold all his belongings, cleared the debts, and to be fair to his divorced wife, gave her legal rights to all he owned. He kept enough funds to pay for the trip to Philadelphia and boarded a ship in April 1774 .

TOM PAINE’S ROLE IN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND INDEPENDENCE.

Tom Paine’s contributions to the American Revolution can be best appreciated when we view the trajectory of the events from his arrival in the fall of 1774 to 1787.

1774 -1775

The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, and ended on October 26, 1774, about five weeks after Tom Paine reached Philadelphia. After extensive discussions by the delegates, a petition was submitted affirming that the colonial population deserved the same rights as the citizens living in England. At that convention, most delegates had hoped for reconciliation and had misgivings about the idea of independence. The communique, nevertheless, stated that if the king did not grant their demand, the colonies would boycott goods from England. The plea was rejected by King George III and the boycott began in early 1775.

On April 19, 1775, learning that rebels had amassed weapons at a facility in Concord, British Troops fired at colonial minuteman, who fired back, inflicting heavy losses. That event and another conflict in Lexington were the harbingers of the American Independence movement.

On May 10, 1775, the delegates at the Second Continental Congress declared the formation of the United Colonies of America and the Continental Army was constituted to launch the Revolutionary war.
Event filled seven years, from 1776 to 1783, will be presented in two parts: the first part, in a nut shell, covers the American Revolutionary War and part two, the key roles played by Paine.

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
After Concord and Lexington, American army prevailed in the the initial battles, but, thereafter, the war dragged on without a major break through for either side. The Americans, in the early years faced stiff resistance, and Washington was forced to withdraw from New York in 1776, could not hold on to Philadelphia in 1777, and in 1778 lost a key battle in New Jersey. Thomas Paine was on the front-line of the Army from the outset and was cited for unusual bravery in action.

During the winter of 1777-1778, when Washington camped north of Philadelphia at Valley Forge, the troops did not have appropriate uniforms and boots to handle the bitter winter. Shortage of food and drinking water added to their woes.

Washington faced innumerable other difficulties through out the war. Smallpox epidemic descended on the troops; it was estimated that in the first year of the war from July 1775 to 1776, “more American troops died from smallpox than were killed in the line of duty.” George Washington, was a victim of smallpox when he was nineteen year old and had thus acquired immunity. He was aware that vaccine was available and also that quite a few delegates in the Congress opposed vaccination. Washington succeeded in persuading the majority in the Congress to supply the vaccines which curtailed the spread of the disease.

Inadequate gun powder was another major impediment. Paine and a few other leaders took the lead and encouraged the commoners to make gun powder from saltpeter, which is a chemical mixture of potassium and sodium nitrates. England had abundant supplies of the powder which they had obtained from India, which was their most prized colony.

The Seven Year War (1756-1763)

It is well known that French support was crucial to the success of American Revolution. France and England had engaged in a protracted war in Europe, America, Africa and Asia; Spain joined forces with England. Americans called it French-Indian War, which lasted for seven years. Native Indians aligned with England, hoping to get a better deal from them. France, was soundly defeated and was forced out of Quebec and from the entire territory they controlled in North America at that time.

The American Revolution offered an opportunity to France to avenge that humiliating defeat. After the Continental Army prevailed over the British at the battle in Sarratoga in October 1777, France felt convinced that America can succeed and forged an alliance with the U.S. Colonies. In March 1776, Congress appointed a lawyer and merchant, Silas Dean, as a secret envoy to seek aid from France. In 1778, Silas Dean and Ben Franklin negotiated and signed two Franco- American agreements. The first was termed Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the second was a military Alliance. France was the first country to recognize U.S.A as an independent nation.

French support with their Army and Navy enabled Washington to defeat the British at York Town. British Commander Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781 and was taken a prisoner of war along with about 7000 soldiers. French General Marquis de Lafayette played a crucial role in that final battle of the revolution.

TOM PAINE DURING THE WAR YEARS

Paine was assigned to serve as a personal aid to officer Nathaniel Green. By December 1776, the morale of the Continental Army was low. The number of soldiers were down to a mere 3,500, as opposed to 35,00o in the British army. One night in the fall of 1776, sitting by the campfire, improvising a drum head to hold papers, Paine wrote the first of sixteen pamphlets under the title, “American Crisis,” which expanded and embellished the ideas expressed in Common Sense. Below is the first two lines of the first paragraph:
” There are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from their responsibilities.”

The essay was a plea to the soldiers to persevere and stress that their struggle and the sacrifice would be worth the price. George Washington, impressed by the message, asked Nathaniel Green to read that essay to the soldiers to arouse their sagging spirits and it had a salutatory effect. The pamphlet was printed and circulated widely and boosted the morale of the dispirited citizens as well.

In 1942, President Franklin D.Roosevelt, quoted Paine’s above paragraph in his Fireside Chat few months after the Pearl Harbor and to commemorate George Washington’s birth day.

In the 3rd Crisis, Paine suggested that the embryonic nation be called ” The Free and Independent States of America,” and later as the ” United States of America.” He was the first person to make that proposal.

1777-1783
Faced with critical shortage of funds and ammunition to conduct the war, Congress decided to seek assistance from France. Silas Dean, during his secret dealings, teaming up with a Frenchman, Caron de Beumarchias ( Pierre Caron) succeeded in acquiring supplies, but devised a devious scheme to profit from the transactions with the French.

In April 1777, when Paine was appointed to be the Secretary of the Committee of Foreign affairs, he got wind of their devious scheme, and openly castigated Silas Dean. In the process, inadvertently, the secret dealings with France was exposed and embarrassed the French King Louis VXI. Supporters of Silas dean attempted to physically assault him. As several delegates faulted Paine, he resigned voluntarily or was compelled to do so. That episode tarnished his reputation but in later years he was proven right.

In March 1781, accompanied by Colonel John Laurens, Paine traveled to France to assist Ben Franklin to seek additional aid from France. The two met King Louis and other important officials and secured a pledge of Naval support, which was crucial in the final battle with the British at Yorktown. He utilized his personal funds for the trip, which was successful.

1783-1789
On September 13, 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War and the United States of America was formally recognized as an independent nation.

After the Revolutionary War ended Paine turned to other projects. He had a scientific mind and conducted experiments in combustion. He invented a “smokeless candle,” which he demonstrated to Franklin. He spent long hours designing models of iron bridges to span the rivers to ease travel, particularly in winter months. With a mission to promote useful knowledge and research, American Philosophical Society (APS ) was established in Philadelphia in 1743, by Benjamin Franklin. In 1769, APS received international recognition and in 1785, Paine was elected to be a member of APS that included many of the Founding Fathers.

TOM PAINE IN ENGLAND AND PARIS 1787- 1802

In April 1787, Paine traveled to Paris, to show a model of an iron bridge at the French Academy of Science. He was in good spirits as two of his good friends, Thomas Jefferson, as the American Minister and Major General Marque de Lafayette, were in Paris at that time. The French Academy of Science had a favorable opinion of the iron bridge concept. After four months in France, Paine went to see his mother at Thetford, England.

Paine was hoping to patent his invention and build a larger model of the bridge in England. He met Edmund Burke, renowned conservative member of the parliament, orator, and scholar. They socialized cordially, but there was not yet an inkling of the forthcoming French Revolution. Soon circumstances changed and Lafayette requested him to return to Paris when the revolution was unfolding. The clash between the supporters of monarchy , the clergy and nobles ( The first and Second Estates), and the commoners and the bourgeois (Third Estate) progressed rapidly. Paine supported the revolution and opposed monarchy, but, out of gratitude for supporting the American independence movement, he pleaded with the radicals to spare King Louis XVI from the guillotine.

Edmund Burke supported the American Revolution but vehemently opposed the French uprising. In a lengthy treatise written in 1790, “Reflections on French Revolution,” Burke defended monarchy and assailed the radicals. As a rejoinder Paine, in 1791, countered with a treatise, ” The Rights of Man, An Answer to Mr.Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution.”

His advocacy of democratic republican form of government alarmed the Prime Minister Prime Minister William Pitt. Abetted by Edmund Burke, Pitt initiated a trial for sedition, but Paine escaped to France and was tried and convicted in his absence. George Bernard Shaw pointed out correctly that the ideas of Paine eventually ” triumphed” over Burke as surviving monarchs in Europe are mere figureheads.

After the revolutionaries declared the Republic of France in 1793, King Louis XVI and Queen Marionette were guillotined. The chaos that followed disintegrated into the of “Reign of Terror” and the revolutionaries lost ground. The royalist supporters imprisoned Paine for ten months and by a stroke of luck, he escaped execution. He wrote Part 2 of the “The Rights of Man, Combining Principles and Practice ” in the jail. After he was released, he convalesced at the residence of the future President James Monroe, who was then serving as the ambassador.

In 1802, Jefferson wrote to Paine asking him to return home. He accepted the gesture and he landed in New York, as debilitated as he was when he first arrived in Philadelphia. In France, briefly, he lived with the family of a revolutionary and author Nicholas Bonnville, who died unexpectedly. Paine financed and brought his widow Marguerite Brazier Bonnville and her three children to U.S.

On September 30, 1805, Paine wrote a letter to Jefferson from New Rochelle, referring to his service during the American revolution. Each state had the choice to gift either land or funds to those who served in the war as volunteers. New York state gifted him over three hundred acres of land in New Rochelle, then worth around one thousand pounds. Pennsylvania gave 500 pounds, but the aid was insufficient. Virginia also had apportioned some funds for that purpose; in that context, Paine wrote to Jefferson, then serving his second term as the President.
Dear Sir,

…“I have been a volunteer to the world for thirty years without taking profits from anything I have published in America or Europe. I have relinquished all profits (so) that those publications might come cheap among the people for whom they were intended… , but the State of Virginia having negatived (canceled) the grant, on the recommendation of General Washington, the matter went no further.” Paine’s appeal to Jefferson for securing the grant did not bear fruit and he lived the rest of his life stricken with poverty and drawing solace from alcohol. From 1802 to 1806, he lived in a cottage in New Rochelle. In 1805, he wrote his last pamphlet on “Constitutional Reform.”

FINAL HOURS AND WORDS

57. Grove Street, Greenwich Village, New York. June 8, 1809.
On above date, Thomas Paine was on his death bed, but was lucid. He was staying at the above residence of Marguerite de Bonnville, who had attended to him during the last days of his life. In the presence of Dr.Philip Graves and a well wisher, Ms. Amasa Woodworth , his doctor, Dr.Manley, asked Paine, “Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.” With a clearly audible whisper, the patient answered, “I have no wish to believe on that subject.” He was not an atheist or agnostic and retained some of his father’s Quaker sentiments. He believed in Deism* which accepts the existence of One God and rejects the myths, tenets, and rituals of organized religion. Many independent thinkers and intellectuals were Deists during that age of enlightenment. Paine considered Deism the only true religion and remained steadfast in that belief to the end and did not recant as Dr.Manley had hoped for.

FALL FROM GRACE
By the time Paine returned from France in 1802, Americans had forgotten him. Robert Ingersoll, a well known liberal free thinker and atheist wrote “One by one, most of his friends and acquaintances deserted him. Maligned by every side… his virtues denounced as vices, his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. …when death came, (it was) almost his only friend.” He was buried in New Rochelle; ten years later in 1819, a overzealous Englishman interred the remains to bury in England, but their whereabouts are unknown.

Among the six persons who attended his funeral were two African Americans to express their gratitude to Paine for his impassioned anti-slavery stance. In 1775, he had written an essay condemning slavery and using scriptures to justify it.

Paine had no direct descendants and bequeathed all he owned to Madam Bonnville to take care of her sons and educate them. Her son Benjamin Bonnville served in the Union army in the Civil war and had risen to the rank of Brigadier General.

In Paine’s honor, there are statues in New Rochelle, Morristown, New Jersey and Washington D.C . Below is a statue in Thetford, England, depicting Paine holding a quill pen in the right hand and an imprint of his book, “Age of Reason,” in the left hand. On the base of the statue is written, “My country is the world and my religion is do good.”

LEGACY OF THOMAS PAINE
Paine was a humanist, incorruptible and expounded his core beliefs in political and religion without fear. The legacy that he bequeathed to posterity are through his writings in an original literary style encompassing revolutionary political concepts, as a freethinker and for his fearless campaign for American Independence. In his narratives, he proposed universal education, women’s rights, free trade, fair compensation for the working class and their right to bargain for better wages. For the elderly, he suggested pension – “old age allowances, as a right and not as a grace or favor.” In October 1770, in a Crisis pamphlet, he wrote that “taxation was necessary and preferable to debt and financial chaos.” In some respects he was ahead of his times and our times as well.

Paine was an autodidact; when he lived in Lewis in Sussex around 1768, he was introduced to classic literature by Clio Rickman. To highlight his literary prowess, below are the quotes of a few well known intellectuals.
President John Adams admitted to his wife, ” I could not have written anything in so manly and striking style.”
Historian Eric Foner, “Paine forged a new political language, using a clear, simple and straightforward style.”
Abraham Lincoln, “I never tire of reading Paine.” According to Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon, “Paine became a part of Lincoln from 1834 to the end of his life.”
Thomas Edison, “I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic…. it was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine in my boyhood. Paine educated me about many matters of which I had never before thought.”

That he played a significant part in the movement’s success is beyond doubt. “To me” wrote Lafayette “America without Paine is unthinkable.” The second President John Adams told Jefferson that, “ history is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine.”

REASONS FOR PAINE’S FALL FROM GRACE

Publication of the “Age of Reason, Being an investigation of True and Fabulous Theology ” was the primary reason for his fall from grace. The first two volumes were published in France in 1794 and 1795, and he wrote the third part after he returned to U.S. in 1802. Jefferson warned him not to publish the third part, but he did not heed his advice and published it in 1807.

He argued forcefully that Bible was a fable written by men and rejected the divinity of Christ. The Puritans and protestants of all denominations and Catholics lambasted him. John Adams, the second President, was one of the most outspoken critics. In 1805, a gun shot was fired into Paine’s room in New Rochelle.

Another important sin he committed was his unwise criticism of Washington. When he was imprisoned in Paris, Paine had hoped that the U.S. President would reach out to the French authorities to seek his release from the jail. Paine had written a respectful and warm letter to Washington before the French revolution started, but his silence at that critical juncture angered him. Besides, Paine wrote insinuatingly that General Washington could not have won the war without French assistance at the decisive battle at York Town. Based on my review of the opinions expressed by some historians, those comments expressed by Paine, out of frustration, were not far from the truth.

Modern day icon of conservative political ideology, President Ronald Reagan, in his speech accepting the nomination of the Republican Party in 1980, quoted liberal Tom Paine’s words, “we have in our power to begin the world over again. ” The Republican Agenda of 2025 plans to begin all over to “Make America Great Again.”

Plain Truth, Common Sense and enlightened reasoning are conspicuously absent in our times. Yet, all American Citizens, whether their ancestors sailed on Mayflower or belong to the first generation, and regardless of country of origin, ought to hope for the best outcome to honor the spirit of the first generation English immigrant Thomas Paine. That would be more luminous than the financial contributions of a billionaire of the first generation immigrant of our time.

Bibliography:
1. Bailey, Bernard: Faces of Revolution, Personalities & Themes in the Struggle for American Independence, Knopf, 1990. 2. Brodie, Fawn.M: Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History, W.W.Norton Company, 1974. 3. Craig, Nelson: Thomas Paine, Enlightenment, Revolution and Birth of a Nation. Viking, 2006.
4. Isaacson, Walter: A Benjamin Franklin Reader, Edited and Annotated, Simon & Schuster, 2003. 5. Shachtman, Tom: Gentleman Scientists and Revolutionaries, The Founding Fathers in The Age of Enlightenment, Macmillan. 6. Kay, J Harvey: Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, 2005, Oxford Portrait Series. 7. Vowell, Sarah : Lafayette in The Somewhat United States, Simon and Schuster, 2015.
7. Williamson, Audrey: Thomas Paine, His Life, Work & Times, St.Martin’s Press, New York, 1973.

* The founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, Washington and Jefferson, did not call themselves Deists, but their religious inclination was towards Deism. At a future date, as an essay will be written as a supplement on this subject.