Unexpected greatness

There was something almost biblical about Chester A. Arthur. He reminds me of men like Moses, David or the apostles of Jesus, ordinary men whose early lives gave no clue they would ever stand out in their own generation, let alone be remembered by generations to follow.

Arthur was hardly a nothing, but he settled early for wealth over worthwhile achievement, Scott S. Greenberger tells us in his fine 2017 biography The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur. A pastor's son, he became a New York City lawyer and served briefly as a brigadier general in the Civil War, in which capacity he excelled at acquisition and organization of supplies.  These skills caught the attention of Roscoe Conkling, the U.S. senator who ran New York's political machine. Soon Arthur was Conkling's righthand man in running the spoils system that handed out jobs to the party faithful, regardless of ability. To describe Arthur as a political hack might have been generous.

Conkling expected to be the Republican candidate for president in 1880, and Arthur went to the convention in support of his boss. He was still wearing his Conkling button when James Garfield, the surprise nominee, agreed to accept Arthur as his running mate in hopes of winning New York's electoral votes. The strategy worked, but nobody, least of all Arthur, expected he would ever occupy the White House. The new vice president spent more time in New York assisting Conkling than in Washington assisting Garfield. Then an assassin's bullet (and inept doctors) changed history.

Power corrupts, but not always. Sometimes power actually builds character. Consider Moses. Or consider Chester Arthur. In his brief presidency, he stood up to Conkling, championed civil service reforms to end the spoils system, took steps to build the U.S. Navy into a world power, became an advocate for civil rights and pushed for more protection for Yellowstone.

Greenberger gives much of the credit for this transformation to an invalid woman named Julia Sand, who wrote Arthur a series of at least 23 letters encouraging him and sometimes chastising him. Often he did precisely what she urged him to do. Arthur once paid a surprise visit to her home and had a long chat with Julia and her family. She wished for more, and sometimes her correspondence reads almost like love letters. The president read her letters, and kept them even when he had most of his papers destroyed at the end of his presidency, but his heart belonged to his late wife. And besides, before he left the White House he knew he was dying.

Chester Arthur is not remembered as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, and in fact he is hardly remembered at all. But Greenberger's book reminds us that even minor presidents may have a little bit of greatness within them.