The Presidents #21: Chester Arthur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Arthur

Discuss him and his Presidency.

:D

From wiki:

During the 1880 U.S. presidential election a New York attorney, Arthur P. Hinman, was hired to explore rumors of Arthur's foreign birth. Hinman alleged that Arthur was born in Ireland and did not come to the United States until he was fourteen years old. When that story failed to take root Hinman came forth with a new story that Arthur was born in Canada. This claim also fell on deaf ears.

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Thanks for your posts, BTW...they've made for interesting reading.

Arthur was considered a corrupt tool of the New York Conkling faction, but was a good and good-hearted president who instituted civil service reform. I can't say it better than what's on Wikipedia:

Publisher Alexander K. McClure wrote, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired... more generally respected." Author Mark Twain, deeply cynical about politicians, conceded, "It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur's administration."

RIP, Mr. President. You were a good one who died just a year and a half after leaving office. Snappy dresser, too.

I actually wish someone NOW would write his biography. A fascinating story.

And indeed, only a product of the spoils system could undo that very system.

The namesake of Chester Arthur Burnett, aka Howlin' Wolf. :-)

"President Arthur demonstrated that he was above not only factions within the Republican Party, but possibly the party itself. Perhaps, in part, he felt able to do this because of the well-kept secret he had known since a year after he succeeded to the Presidency, that he was suffering from Bright's disease, a fatal kidney disease. Arthur probably first contracted the disease in 1882. While it is impossible to know just when Arthur began to be affected by the disease, Arthur's conduct during the elections of 1879 and 1880 was described as vigorous. Yet during the congressional elections of 1882, from mid-1882 onward, he was clearly not well. The disease accounted for his failure to seek the Republican nomination for president aggressively in 1884. Nevertheless, Arthur was the last incumbent President to submit his name for renomination and fail to obtain it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_A._Arthur

She was also one of my great grandmother's aunts, although that bit of trivia has not made it into the history books.

First thing he did upon succeeding Garfield was to go and spend 800 bucks at Brooks Brothers on custom-tailored clothes.

Arthur liked the finer things in life--good food, fine clothes--and he was a master procrastinator.

Right up there with James K. Polk's presidency in terms of underratedness.