JAMES GARFIELD Dies ASSASSINATION Prints 1881 Newspaper

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JAMES GARFIELD Dies ASSASSINATION Prints 1881 Newspaper is a complete, genuine historic newspaper with the following title, date and description: LESLIES ILLUSTRATED , N.Y., Oct. 8, 1881. * James Garfield death illustrations Full front page illustration: The Death Of President Garfield.--Judge Brady Administering The Presidential Oath To Vice-President Arthur, At His Residence In New York, September 20th. Page is black-bordered and has The Nations Loss diagonally in the masthead. Fullpg. inside has an illus. of Garfield being embalmed, plus two scenes of the funeral train. Tipped-in double page centerfold has a close-up of Garfields body lying in state with Blaine and Arthur viewing the body. Also a fullpg. of the post-mortem examination. Bit of foxing in the front page illustration, occasional foxing in the margins. 16 pages. Historical Background: Garfield was shot by disappointed office seeker Charles Julius Guiteau on July 2 , 1881 , at 9:30 a.m., less than four months after taking office. The President had been walking through the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (a predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad ) Washington, D.C. , on his way to a Williams College reunion, accompanied by Secretary of State James G. Blaine and his sons, James and Harry . The station was located on the southwest corner of present day Sixth Street Northwest and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., a site that is now occupied by the National Gallery of Art . As he was being arrested after the shooting, Guiteau excitedly said, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts ! I did it and I want to be arrested! Arthur is President now," which briefly led to unfounded suspicions that Arthur or his supporters had put Guiteau up to the crime. (The Stalwarts strongly opposed Garfield's Half-Breeds; like many Vice Presidents, Arthur was chosen for political advantage, to placate his faction, rather than for skills or loyalty to his running-mate. It was thus conceivable that he might have been involved in the assassination). Guiteau was upset because of the rejection of his repeated attempts to be appointed as the United States consul in Paris a position for which he had absolutely no qualificationsand was mentally ill. Garfield's assassination was instrumental to the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act on January 16 , 1883 . One bullet went through Garfield's shoulder and out his back, just missing an artery; the second bullet lodged in his chest and could not be found, although scientists today think that the bullet was near his lung. Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector in an attempt to find the bullet, but the metal bedframe Garfield was lying on made the instrument malfunction. Because metal bedframes were relatively rare, the cause of the instrument's deviation was unknown at the time. Garfield became increasingly ill over a period of several weeks due to infection, which caused his heart to weaken. He died of a massive heart attack or a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm , following blood poisoning and bronchial pneumonia , at 10:35 p.m. on Monday, September 19 , 1881 , in Elberon, New Jersey , exactly two months before his 50th birthday. The ailing President had been moved to Elberon, a seaside community, in the vain hope that the fresh air and quiet t might aid his recovery. Most historians and medical experts now believe that Garfield probably would have survived his wound had the doctors attending him been more capable. [3] Several inserted their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe for the bullet, and one doctor punctured Garfield's liver in doing so. Guiteau was found guilty of assassinating Garfield, despite his lawyers raising an insanity defense . He insisted that incompetent medical care had really killed the President. Although historians generally agree that while poor medical care was a contributing factor, it was not a legal defense. Guiteau was sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on June 30 , 1882 , in Washington, D.C. <... read more

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