Madness, Medicine and Murder

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

This morning, during my commute to work, I finished listening to the book Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard. I enjoyed listening to the book, and I will probably talk more about it later (especially in comparison to the last audio book I listened to). But here’s what I want to note right now:

The book marks the 71st book I have read this year, which ties my all-time high total, set back in 2000. Wow! I wouldn’t have guessed that I would have read so many books in a year in which I am in college, but I was in college back in 2000, too, so maybe it gives me the organization and impetus to read more. Who knows?

And speaking of reading accomplishments and books, the last book I finished reading, Diving Into the Wreck, by Adrienne Rich (which I read for class), marks the 900th book on my list of books I’ve read. Of course, I’ve read many more books than that, but this list doesn’t count really short books or little kids’ books. Still, since at least 1989, I’ve had a goal of reading 1,000 books, and I am now over 90% done with my goal. At this rate, I should reach the goal in 2014, or maybe 2015. Wish me luck!

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

As note above, the most recent book I listened to was Destiny of the Rpublic. But before that, I read The President and the Assassin. They’re both centered around the assassination of a US President.

Quick! Pop quiz: Name a president who was assassinated?

“Oh, that’s easy,” you say.

“Really?” I ask. “But can you name one besides JFK or Abraham Lincoln?”

“Ummm…”

Yeah. Tougher, isn’t it?

The fact is, four of our presidents have been assassinated: Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and JFK. The first and last are, of course, the more famous of the four. One, because it was the man considered the best president ever and, the other, because it was by far the most recent. Those two assassinations share many similarities:

-Both men elected in ’60 (1860 and 1960).

-Both men shot in the head and died the same day.

-Both assassins were killed before they could be brought to justice.

-Both men succeeded by Vice President Johnson (Andrew and Lyndon).

But now consider the similarities between the other two men…

-Both ran on the Republican ticket.

-Both men were overweight

-Both assassinated in years ending in 1 (1881, 1901).

-Both lived for several days following the shootings.

-Both assassins had impossible-to-pronounce last names (Guiteau and Czolgosz).

-Both assassins were brought to justice, found guilty, and executed.

The book I just finished reading, the one about Garfield’s assassination, was the more interesting of the two. Probably because James Garflield was a more interesting man, and President, than William McKinley. Did you know Garfield published one of the proofs for The Pythagorean Theorum? He also advocated against the spoils system, which was how things were going back then. The spoils system bascially meant the President rewarded his friends and helpers to positions of authority, such as the cabinet, judicial appointments, and ambassadorships, regardless of the person’s credentials. Garfield didn’t think this was a good idea, and he spent the first three months in office battling senior senators who disagreed with him. And his own Vice President, too. In fact, his stance on this position is what enraged his assassin.

The President and the Assassin also held my attention, but the book wasn’t as focused; it kept moving forward and backward in time seemingly at random. It tried to cover too much – the gold standard, the Spanish-American War, the rise of American imperialism, Theodore Roosevelt’s rise to fame (Teddy was McKinley’s second VP, and the one who succeeded him to the presidency).

Sadly, both men suffered for days after being shot. Garfield actually lived for over two months, losing a third of his body weight, being paralyzed from the waist down, and being subjected to humiliating invasions. Pretty good arguments can be made that both men died from the lousy medical care they received. Garfield, for example, endured the probing by filthy physicians’ fingers, which introduced gangrene and tore new holes in his body. And when Alexander Graham Bell showed up with a new invention to determine the whereabouts of the lodged bullet, Garfield’s haughty doctor would only let Bell look for the bullet in the places where he, the doctor, believed it was. The subsequent autoposy revealed his error. At the trial, the assassin argued that the killer was not him, but Garfield’s primary physician. Pretty clever, I think.

Anyway, if you’re only going to read one, read Destiny of the Republic. And if you need a President to admire, you could do a lot worse than James A. Garfield.