Chester A. Arthur

president chester a. arthur
twenty-first president of the united states

interesting facts
Chester A. Arthur, former machine politician, became a reformer in the Presidency.

biography
Chester Alan Arthur was born in the village of Fairfield, Vt., Oct. 5, 1829. His father, William Arthur, had immigrated to America from northern Ireland when he was 18 and had become a Baptist minister. His mother, Malvina Stone Arthur, was born in New Hampshire. The Arthurs had four daughters when Chester was born. When the family was complete, Chester had a brother and another sister.

Elder Arthur, an eloquent preacher, was restless, and moved constantly from one town to another. In 1839 he settled down at Union Village (now Greenwich), in eastern New York. Chester attended the academy there and was remembered by his teacher as being "frank and open in manners and genial."

Five years later Elder Arthur moved to Schenectady. There Chester was admitted to Union College as a sophomore when he was only 15, because his father had taught him Latin and Greek. His father, however, could give him no financial help; so the next year Chester began to teach during the long winter vacations. After graduation at 18, near the top of his class, he continued to teach while studying law.

In 1856 Arthur went into partnership with another young lawyer in a modest office in the Wall Street district. To build up a practice, he needed to enlarge his circle of acquaintances; so he joined clubs and entered politics. He soon numbered among his friends prominent literary people as well as politicians. He could talk equally well on literature, politics, or fishing--his only sport.

In 1859 Arthur married Ellen Lewis Herndon of Fredericksburg, Va., who was living in New York City with her mother. Her father, Capt. William Lewis Herndon of the United States Navy, an explorer of the Amazon, had heroically gone down with his ship in the Caribbean after saving many lives. Ellen had a winning manner, and she and her mother belonged to a prominent social group.

Arthur played an important part in the organization of the new Republican party in the state of New York, but he was never interested in holding political office. His activities soon brought him to the attention of the governor, Edwin D. Morgan.

On April 13, 1861, the day after Fort Sumter was fired on, Morgan asked Arthur to take over the duties of quartermaster general in New York City. The post involved supplying barracks, food, uniforms, and equipment for the thousands of troops who passed through the city. Arthur quickly built up an efficient organization and forced contractors to meet specifications. He could not be bribed to accept inferior materials. A friend quoted Arthur as saying, "If I had misappropriated five cents, and on walking downtown saw two men talking on the street together, I would imagine they were talking of my dishonesty."

Morgan was succeeded by a Democratic governor, and Arthur turned over his organization to a Democratic successor on Jan. 1, 1863. He left the office poorer than he was when he went in; but he soon acquired a considerable fortune in private practice.

Arthur's first son, born in 1860, died before he was three years old. Another son, born in 1864, was given his father's name but was called Alan. A daughter, born in 1871, was named for her mother, Ellen Herndon Arthur.

The Republican party was seriously divided in 1880. Conkling, as leader of the Stalwart Republicans, tried to nominate Grant for a third term in 1880. The "half-breed" Republicans wanted Senator James G. Blaine. The deadlock in the convention lasted until the 36th ballot, when James A. Garfield was unexpectedly nominated. To make sure of the Stalwarts' aid in the election, the convention nominated Arthur for vice-president. The Republicans won the election and Arthur took the Senate chair; but he did not lose his interest in New York politics.

After the election, the split in the party widened. Garfield appointed Blaine, Conkling's bitter enemy, as secretary of state and refused to allow Conkling to name the secretary of the treasury, who would control the Custom House. Finally, Garfield proposed to appoint William H. Robertson, the outstanding "half-breed" Republican of New York State, to the Custom House.

Conkling feared Robertson would use Custom House patronage to build up his own machine. Arthur shared his apprehension. As a protest, Conkling resigned from the Senate and took with him the junior senator from New York, Thomas C. Platt. Arthur went with them to Albany to work for their reelection.

Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, by a crazed office seeker who boasted that he was a Stalwart Republican . During the weeks when Garfield lingered between life and death, popular indignation against the Stalwarts ran high. "Arthur for president!" Hayes wrote in his diary, "Conkling the power behind the throne, superior to the throne!" Arthur remained in seclusion until Garfield's death made him president.

Arthur's simple and sincere inaugural address helped to reassure the people. In his first message to Congress he surprised everyone by coming out strongly for civil-service reform. In 1883 he signed the country's first civil-service law, the Pendleton Act. This act set up a civil-service commission to conduct open competitive examinations for about 14,000 officeholders. Succeeding presidents extended the merit system.

Before Garfield's death, frauds in the so-called Star Routes had come to light. The Star Routes were those in the Far West where mail was still carried by horseback or stagecoach. Large sums had been drawn from the post office for services that were never rendered. Arthur tried earnestly but unsuccessfully to bring the guilty to justice.

Arthur is called the Father of the American Navy because he took a personal interest in modernizing and expanding it. The Navy had declined steadily after the American Civil War. In 1882 Congress appropriated money for the nation's first all-steel vessels. The so-called "white squadron," which was completed in Cleveland's administration, formed the nucleus of the modern United States Navy.

Few governments in history had ever complained of too much money in the treasury. Throughout the 1880s, however, each year the United States government had a large surplus over ordinary expenditures. At this time government funds were stored in vaults rather than in banks. With each increase in the treasury surplus, more money was taken out of circulation, which resulted in a deflation of prices. Moreover this was happening in a period of rapid economic expansion. The most pressing problem of the administration therefore was how to return money to circulation. The flood of money was caused largely by the high tariffs that had been imposed by the government during the Civil War. Arthur wanted to attack the surplus by lowering tariffs. He set up a commission, which recommended a reduction in duties. Manufacturers who prospered under the high tariffs, however, had powerful lobbies in Washington. The so-called "Mongrel" tariff of 1883, which Congress passed, stamped the Republicans as favoring a high protective tariff. The Democrats at this time began to demand a lower tariff--"for revenue only."

In Arthur's administration the first acts to restrict immigration were passed. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 restricted the immigration of Chinese laborers for a ten-year period. In the same year paupers, criminals, convicts, and the insane were barred from the United States.

Arthur's popularity grew with each year of his presidency. He had struggled to hold together the bitterly divided Republican party, and he hoped to receive approval from the nominating convention of 1884. The convention, however, did not seriously consider him. Senator Blaine was nominated but lost the election to Grover Cleveland, the first Democratic president to be elected since 1856. Despondent, Arthur returned to his New York home and tried to resume his law practice, but he lacked the energy for it. He died on Nov. 18, 1886.