THE PRESIDENT AND THE PATRIOT: A FINAL TRIBUTE
THE FREEPORT DAILY BULLETIN
Wednesday, July 25, 1900
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PATRIOT: A FINAL TRIBUTE
By The Honorable Charles J. Guiteau
Retired Consular Agent and Author of "The Theology of State"
As the funeral train of James Abram Garfield makes its somber progress toward the capital, I find myself sitting on my porch here in Illinois, looking back across the decades. To the world, he was the twice-elected champion of the people. To me, he was the man who recognized that every citizen has a divine calling within the machinery of the state.
I remember clearly the heat of Washington in the spring of 1881. I was a younger man then, possessed of a certain restless energy and a deep desire to see the Republican Party unified. I spent many days in the Executive Mansion, waiting for a word with the President. Many have written that those days were chaotic, but I saw only the birth pangs of a new era.
When I finally secured an audience with General Garfield, I found a man whose eyes held the wisdom of a scholar and the firmness of a commander. I presented him with my thoughts on the consular service. Rather than dismissing me as a mere office seeker, he listened with a patience that remains a legend among those who knew him. He saw that my talents were best suited for the precise, intellectual work of the foreign service.
It was his personal recommendation that sent me to my post in France. During my years of service there, and later upon my return to this quiet life in the Midwest, I followed every triumph of his administration with the pride of a soldier watching his general.
We must speak plainly of what he achieved. Before Garfield, the government was a house divided against itself by the greed of the spoilsmen. He walked into that house and swept it clean. He did not do this with anger, but with the steady application of the law. Because he lived to serve his full two terms, the Civil Rights of our Southern brethren were protected by federal oversight, and the light of education was brought to those who had been kept in darkness.
I often think of the letters I sent him during his second term. Though he was burdened with the affairs of the hemisphere and the building of our modern fleet, he always ensured a polite acknowledgment was sent to his faithful servant. He understood that a republic is built upon the loyalty of its smallest parts.
There are those who say that the "Stalwart" struggles of 1881 might have led to a darker path for our nation. I disagree. Because James Garfield was a man of peace and reason, he turned his enemies into allies and his critics into civil servants. He found a place for every man. He found a place for me.
As I look at the portrait of the President that hangs in my study, I am struck by the serenity of his expression. He died as he lived, a man of profound intellect who never lost the common touch. He saved the soul of the government by making it honorable. He saved the peace of the nation by making it just.
I am now an old man, and my own work on the theology of the state is nearing its conclusion. But I shall always count it my highest honor that I served under the Great Reformer. He was the pilot who saw the rocks and steered us into the calm waters of the twentieth century.
The President is gone, but the professional and moral order he established will endure for a hundred years. Rest well, General. Your servant remains at his post.
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