An Old Timey Podcast - 92: The First Lady is Sick… But What About ME? (Part 4)

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

When James Garfield won the presidential election, Charles Guiteau was ecstatic. He was certain that he’d played a major role in Garfield’s victory. So, fueled by delusion, Charles Guiteau began hounding James Garfield for a political appointment.Meanwhile, New York Senator and political boss Roscoe Conkling threw a temper tantrum. James Garfield had the tenacity to fill his cabinet with members of his *own* choosing. That made Roscoe mad. So? He hatched a plan. A very stupid plan.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book, “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President,” by Candice MillardThe book, “Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield,” by Kenneth D. Ackerman“Murder of a President” documentary and additional resources from PBS.org“‘As a Matter of Fact, I Presume I Shall Live to be President’”: A Brief Biographical Sketch of Garfield’s Assassin” from the National Park Service“Secret Service fast facts,” CNN Editorial ResearchAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Norman Caruso. And on this episode, Charles Guto won't leave anyone alone. Part four. Ah, the pest. He's a little pest. Yeah, this is the fun one before we get to the bad one. Hey! Hey, hey. Oh, I'm getting something. Hang on. You're not getting anything. Chris? What? Breaking news. Oh, yeah?

Yes. Uh-huh. Sorry, I had to let the alert finish. You know, it feels like it's not really breaking news if you wait for the music to play out. Well, you know, we have to respect the production. Okay, so let it play out. After a thorough third-party investigation, Kristen Caruso and Norman Caruso, that's us, are not in the Epstein files. Norman?

It's official. Well, I'm glad. Yeah. I shouldn't say I'm glad. I know I'm not. What a weird thing to say. Listen, we want the public's trust, okay? And so I just wanted to make sure we weren't in there.

Turns out we're not. I thought it was important for our listeners to know that as well. But, you know, and you know, I find it kind of odd that a lot of these other podcasts, they haven't said whether or not they're in the Epstein files. Oh, okay. So I figured we would, you know, do the right thing and say that we're not in there. So, hey, you know, if you're looking for a small, sexy, independent podcast, to support that is guaranteed to not be in a worldwide sex trafficking ring,

head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. This is the strangest ad you've ever done. For just $5 a month, pennies a day. You'll get access to our Discord chat and the entire catalog of old-timey bonus episodes with full video. And we've got some good ones, don't we, Kristen? We sure do. Have you ever wondered who invented the sandwich?

Or maybe you'd like to hear about the time the United States thought about importing hippos. Well, all you've got to do is join the Patreon to listen. So go to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast to sign up. Thank you very much. Norm, I'm so glad you let everyone know that we're not in the Epstein files and therefore a great choice for their $5 this month. Exactly. You can trust us. Ding. Oh, wait a, you think I can time the wink with the ding? Try it. Oh, that was a, it wasn't great. But only the Folks at the $10 level on Patreon will know how bad it was. And that's their punishment for supporting us too much.

Yeah. You have a recap for us, Kristen? I sure do. Because I don't know where the hell we are in this story. Previously, on an old-timey podcast. Dark Horse candidate James Garfield won the Republican nomination for president, and that prompted a tidal wave of big feelings from some very emotional dudes. Take, for example, Charles Goutot.

Charles was ecstatic. In reality, Charles was a deeply troubled, delusional man who'd failed at nearly everything he'd tried in life. And yet, when James Garfield got the nomination, Charles convinced himself that he'd found an opportunity. He knew that if he helped with the campaign, he'd be handsomely rewarded. Handsomely rewarded with a political appointment. So he traveled to New York City. He wrote a speech that no one asked for, titled Garfield Against Hancock. He knew it would change the world.

But no one attended his speeches. And when he showed up at the vice presidential candidate's door, that fellow wasn't even home. That was fine, though. He'd just try harder. And that was no problem because Charles Gattot had nothing else going on. But Charles wasn't the only one suffering from a mix of grandiosity, delusion, and bad hair. James Garfield's nomination hit New York Senator and Political Boss Roscoe Conkling where it hurt him the most, his ego. Didn't everyone know that he was the one in charge?

Didn't they know that he was the one who picked the president and then told said president what to do? Roscoe Conkling wanted everyone to remember that when it came to the Republican Party, he was the one who called the shots. The truth was Roscoe Conkling was deeply worried about the safety of the precious spoils system. Stop me if you've heard this, get your bingo cards ready. But back in the day, folks, when a political party won their election, they gave all the government jobs to their closest friends and supporters. To the victor go the spoils. Damn, Skippy. It was a system that bred corruption and entitlement.

And who would want to change that? Certainly not Roscoe Conkling. And definitely not Charles Gautau. On this week's episode... Charles Guteau meets a ton of new people and he doesn't give anybody the creeps. Meanwhile, across town, Roscoe Conkling dons his finest petticoat, hits the gym, gets that single forehead curl to lay just right,

and then looks direct to camera and says, You thought I was an asshole in episode one? Huh. Wait, don't you see me now? Yeah. Harkor! Well, it's cool that Charles Gatot is going to make some friends. No, it's not cool, Norman.

You know it's not cool. You saw Death by Lightning. You know how this ends. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Okay, so Garfield is president now. No, no. I've done some time traveling. We've got to show

all the stuff that Charles Gatot did, I mean, and he did some stuff to definitely make sure that Garfield won the election. He basically single-handedly does this whole thing. And frankly, everyone's kind of a dick about it afterward. You'll see, you'll see in this episode. They didn't appreciate his work. Right. Oh, it was summer, summer time. And Charles Gatow knew that it was not time to sit back and unwind. No, he was too busy. He'd written that awesome. speech for James Garfield's campaign, and now he just needed to get in good with the leadership of the Republican Party. Charles knew exactly how to make that happen. The Republican State Committee and the Republican National Committee had their offices on Fifth Avenue.

Ooh, Sacks Fifth Avenue. That's right. He popped in, got a new blouse, and then headed over to campaign headquarters. Wait a minute. How about this? Pack Fifth Avenue. Oh, that is cute. Yeah, no, we get it. Yeah. And I think somewhere, someone in their car politely chuckled. And we're going to need that one person to reach it. Since he had literally nothing else going on in his life, Charles went to those offices all the time. And that's where he finally met vice presidential candidate Chester A. Arthur. Oh, my God.

He tried to get him at home, but he was never home. So go to your workplace. There you go. weird about it. It was such a thrill. Oh, the pair became fast friends. Charles told Chester all about his amazing speech, and Chester was like, oh, mm-hmm, okay. Charles said, hey, I'm a lawyer from Chicago. I've got a ton of experience with public speaking. I'm great. I know your office handles all the campaign speeches and stuff. What if you gave me a speaking assignment so I could do my speech for everyone? And Chester said something so excited.

exciting. Like, yeah, check in with my office. And then, then he said something very friendly and very encouraging, like, well, it was nice to meet you. And just like that, Charles Gatot was in, baby. So he was just being polite? No, Norman. Clearly, he was very excited to have met such an important man. Really? I don't know how you've misread this. so badly. Charles Guteau had his foot in the door, and what a foot it was. People noticed that Charles didn't really have proper footwear. Oh, so literally. His shoes were worn out. So were his clothes. He seemed desperate, but also so confident, like super duper confident. But who had time to focus on little Charles Guteau when there were much bigger things going on?

things like The Fifth Avenue Summit The Fifth Avenue Summit was the place to be It was essentially just a convention for the Republican Party I mean it sounds awful But man people were pumped for it That does sound awful They held it at the Fifth Avenue Hotel

Which was basically the swankiest place in town It did look neat Man everything's happening on Fifth Avenue Well yeah come on I thought Lexington was the place to be. That's where you live, but you party on Fifth Avenue. Keep up. Presidential candidates didn't really give speeches for themselves back in the day, but the Fifth Avenue summit was James Garfield's one exception to that rule. He did give a speech there.

Technically, the reason he attended that summit was so that he could meet up with Roscoe Conkling, though. James Garfield knew that in order to have the best shot at winning the election, he needed the party to unite behind him. And he needed Roscoe Conkling's support. All you got to do is compliment his hair. I mean, no, Roscoe Conkling's such a butthole. He's going to need compliments on the hair, the outfit, the overall style. He's going to be like, I hate to compare him to an ice skater because I love these ice skaters.

But, I mean, he wants points for style, execution, technique, everything, everything. Right. Well, you got to flatter this man. Yeah. Give him all the credit. Make him feel special. So James Garfield showed up at the summit after being led to believe

that Roscoe Conkling would meet with him. But even though James Garfield had traveled all the way from Ohio to be there and Roscoe, who lived in New York and was staying in that hotel at the time of the conference, refused to meet with James Garfield. Damn.

That is so silly. That is so petty. Just because he didn't like Garfield as the nominee? Yeah, and he was showing him who was more important. He wouldn't even meet with him, even though he was the candidate for president. Man. And then, in a move so condescending that it caused condensation on beverages nationwide, Roscoe Conkling sent his...

Wait a minute. Wait, what? That's what happens. Condescending causes condensation. It causes condensation. Folks, if you're experiencing condensation on one of your beverages, just know that somewhere someone is being very condescending. I don't think that's how that works. I'm a scientist, Norm.

Thank you very much. Okay. I do hate condensation. Yeah, and you hate condescension. So the two are intertwined. Correlation is not causation, Kristen. Shout out to Turvis Tumblers who prevented condensation on our cups. Yeah.

Scientists have finally figured it out. And I am that scientist. No. Norm, I'm going to start podcasting in a lab coat, and then maybe you'll learn to respect me and believe that I am, in fact, a scientist. I mean, that's basically all the qualification you need on the internet these days. If you wear a lab coat, people are going to believe you're a scientist. All right.

I'm inspired. Are you ready to hear about the condensation and the condescending comments? Right. From these con artists of men. Oh. Ha, ha. So Roscoe sent his yesman to meet with James Garfield. And in that meeting, those freaking toads were like, okay, so you're putting together your presidential cabinet, right?

That's cute. Okay, here's who you can include. Here's who you can't include. Here's what we want. Remember, you have to do what Roscoe Conkling says. Otherwise, he will get very mad. And we'll get mad at you too. And you don't want us to be mad at you, do you?

I guess I'm wondering, like, wouldn't Roscoe Conklin? want a Republican in the White House? Like, why would he sabotage his own party? This man is a freaking butthole. Okay. You've said this. Yes, I'm trying to drive the point home. Part of it is, I mean, this was a huge blow to his ego

that the guy he wanted to be the candidate didn't get picked. So he's feeling not as powerful as usual. And so now he's trying to assert his dominance. And part of this is these mind games of like, yeah, come to New York and I'll meet with you. Oh, I'm busy in my hotel room, sniffing my own farts. You have to go talk to other people and do exactly what I say. I wonder if he was thinking, okay, you know, worst case scenario, a Democrat wins.

We live through four years of that and then I'm back in power again. Well, it's a weird, weird tactic, but all right. I mean, it really is just like the ego on this man. Yeah. Yeah. How do you think that meeting went down, Norm? Oh, the people that were like, here's who you can pick and who's... Yeah.

Now, we know without a doubt, that their glasses were sweating profusely. But aside from that, what do you think happened? I feel like Garfield was like, no, that's not how we're going to do it. Hmm. That'd be pretty balzy. Well, he's a balzy man. Well, right, but I mean, he doesn't have all the power here. He's just the nominee.

Yes. But he's got Chester Arthur too, right? Chester Arthur was the one telling him you've got to do this and you can't do that because he's Roscoe Conkling's yes-yest, yes man. Oh, geez. I will admit I'm being a little shitty here by asking you what you think happened in this meeting. Because the truth is, no one really knows what happened in this meeting. You tricked me? Well, here's the thing.

You asked me an impossible question to make me look like a fool? No, no, no. I exonerated you from the Epstein files earlier in this episode. I never thought I was involved. And now you're trying to make me look stupid. Here's the thing. All the yes men left that meeting being like, wow, Garfield really been over for us. Wow, he really agreed to do whatever we wanted.

Oh, that was a great meeting. I sure did enjoy it. And James Garfield, who went into that meeting alone, walked away thinking, hmm, I did a pretty good job. I didn't actually promise them anything. Okay. So who knows exactly what happened? happened. I'm guessing that James Garfield probably told them whatever he thought they wanted to hear.

And then he was like, if I'm lucky enough to win this thing, I'll do whatever I want. Sure. Anyhow. Yeah, because once you're president, I mean, you got it. You got the power. We'll see. Oh. Roscoe and his men wanted total submission. They weren't open to reason, but they didn't really know who they were dealing with. James Garfield was a nice person. He didn't really hold grudges, and that meant that people sometimes underestimated him. Mm-hmm, non-threatening.

Yeah, he had a way of seeming non-threatening. Yeah. But... You got to watch out for these non-threatening boys. Tell us about it, Norm. I'm just saying they're kind of like elephants. They never forget. I would say elephants are very threatening.

They're huge. And many a zookeeper. Oh, look at Dumbo. That was a cartoon. Yeah, but elephants can be sweet. And I think we all know what happened when Dumbo's mom got pissed off that one time, didn't go over well. I told you, I have the energy of Dumbo's mom sometimes. You do, you do.

It's very sexual energy. That's right. Because when I look at Dumbo's mom, I think I'm ready to have sex. Okay. James Garfield was smart. What a great transition. He was strategic. He was patient.

like Dumbo's mom. And yeah, no one expected him to be the 1880 presidential candidate, but that didn't mean he was unprepared for the role. So he navigated the Fifth Avenue Summit as best he could, hoping to unite the very divided Republican Party behind him. It was tense. Tense for everyone except for Charles Gatot. Charles loved the Fifth Avenue Summit. He attended all, he was there? He attended all the sessions. He wasn't shy at all. He talked to Everyone. He handed them copies of his amazing speech. Have you heard of it? Garfield versus Hancock. He was pushy, pushy, pushy, and it worked, worked, worked because guess what? What? The Republican Party leaders did give him a speaking assignment.

Oh, okay. What do they want Gatot to do? He gave his stupid speech at a Thursday night outdoor gala. He shared the stage with James Garfield. Oh, my God. The next day when the New York Times ran an article about the gala, they listed the people who spoke that night, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, congressmen, and listed right alongside them all, Charles Guto of Illinois. Are you kidding? Damn, it's all about networking. I mean, this is one of those things. If that doesn't inspire and scare you, I don't know what will.

to me he has the energy of a very pushy guy at a bar pushing pushing pushing and it's kind of a numbers game like eventually someone's going to sleep with you well and that's also what happened i didn't go into it in the script because there was no time oh charles was high on life at one point he ran into this guy who'd known him back when he was a lawyer in chicago and he handed that guy a copy of the speech and that guy seemed a little surprise that Charles Gautau had a speech that had been printed on the Republican National Committee letterhead. How had Charles Gattot managed that? Was he part of the National Party? Well, yeah, this guy's part of like, hey, didn't you jump in the jury box and threaten to punch one of the jury? I mean, this guy was floored. Absolutely floored. Like, first of all, Charles approaches him like, hey, old buddy, old pal. And he's like, oh, and Charles even said something condescending to him. He was like, hey, you're on the right track being here.

And the guy's like, okay, thanks. And yeah, he's got this speech on the fancy stationery acting like he's somehow in the mix. Yeah. Hater's going to hate him, am I right? That's right. Oh, it was a ball. Charles met all the VIPs. And yeah, he knew that some people found him a little annoying, but that wasn't anything new.

The new thing was that no one was telling him to go away. And so that meant he had a chance. And important people knew his name, which meant that he was important. And when he ran into those people a second time, a third time, a fourth time. And he said, do you remember me, Charles Goteau? They said, oh, yeah, yeah, of course. And then he reminded them of his speech, gave that speech. Remember that good speech?

And they were like, oh, yeah, that was a good speech. And then that meant that he had a very good speech and he was making a difference and he would definitely get a job when James Garfield won the election. Don't you agree? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That summer he hung out at the Republican Committee offices on Fifth Avenue a ton. I have a question. Sure. How is he getting money? What do you mean?

Well, it sounds like his toes are sticking through his shoes and he's... It's a new look. Hot for the summer. You know, he doesn't seem like he has a job. right now. So like... He, in fact, does not have a job. He's working to get a job and he's definitely going to get it. Yeah.

So where's he like staying during this whole convention? See, is he, you know, during my convention days, we all just kind of shared hotel rooms. Like, you know, hey, can I sleep on the floor or sleep in the cuck chair? Every hotel room has one. Right. So what's Charles Gatow doing? Well, Norm, you see, he did this adorable thing. And I think we're all going to enjoy hearing about it.

He would go to a boarding house and get a room. Yeah. And then he would have a sense for when the bill would be due. And oopsies, he'd be gone. Oh. Sometimes also, if he was on a train, for example, and they came by and wanted his ticket, he would explain that he was a man of God. He was doing God's work.

And sometimes the guy would be like, all right, man. Or they'd kick him out, you know? Okay. He was kind of a wascally webbbit, you know, I don't know what to tell you. For real. He is kind of like a cartoon character. He became a familiar face. Later, Chester Arthur would try to guess how many times he saw Charles Gatot that August, and he said at least 10 times and as many as 20 times.

Yeah, this guy was all over the place. And so maybe that's why when Charles Gatot wrote Chester Arthur a letter on Republican National Committee stationary, asking for another speaking opportunity, his office said yes. Oh, my God. It probably helped that the letter was signed by the National Republican Committee chairman. Of course, the story behind that was that Charles had run into the chairman one day with a copy of that letter and just bugged him and bugged him and bugged him, sign it, sign it. And the guy had been like, fine, whatever. And he signed it just to get Charles off his back.

Who was this chairman? Oh my God. Norm, are you kidding me? What? This is yet another example in this series where there's a name. Uh-huh. And I decided not to include it because the name is never coming up again. And you have asked for the man's name.

I don't even have it in my scrap folder. So I'm going to call him Humphrey. I'm going to call him Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey Bogart? No, I feel like his name was Merritt or something. I don't know. Wow. Lost to history.

No, it's not. It's in the book, Dark Horse. If you really want to know, I remember it. That part. Okay. Anyway, I have a totally unrelated question. All right. What's your question?

Have you ever read the book if you give a mouse a cookie? Um, no. I'm familiar with it, but I have never read the book. Anyone who has read that book is going to know what I mean with this whole pestering someone into signing their endorsement. And then he takes it to Chesteray Arthur's office. And it's a thing of, if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to, ask for a glass of milk. If you give him the glass of milk, he's going to ask for the bowl.

And like the thing just kind of spirals out of control until basically the mouse is in the White House bugging James Garfield. I think that's how that book ends. Right. The mouse becomes president. So it's like, you know, give an inch and they take a foot. Is that kind of what you're saying? Give an inch, take a mile. Isn't that the same? Even better. Even better. Yeah. So that's how Charles Gautot, who'd already been written up in the New York Times, who'd already shared a stage with the candidate was assigned to speak at a rally for black New Yorkers.

This was big. Another win for Charles Gattotot. You know what? I will say this. I respect the hustle. Well, you know, we talked about this in last week's episode a bit where he is a con man without the charm. Yeah.

And even without the charm, you can clearly still get some places. and I think a presidential campaign, this is such the perfect storm because a lot of these people are running for office, so they're not going to want to be rude to anybody who is clearly there to help. And a lot of campaigns do run on volunteer efforts. Yeah. And all your volunteers aren't going to be great. But, hey, if someone seems decent, yeah, all right, let's throw him a bone.

He's a party supporter, yeah. Clearly. He was that event's first speaker. It would be his second write-up in the New York Times. But, oh boy, he got up there to speak and he looked out at the crowd. And he did speak for a little bit. And then he was like, mm. And then he just went and sat down.

What? He just stopped? He later said, I didn't exactly like the crowd. It was a very hot, sultry night. And I didn't fancy speaking with the torchlights and the gas lights and all that. What? He's been harassing everyone about this stupid speech.

He reads two paragraphs and sits down. And he slunks out? Oh, my God. Well, that sucks. And he was the opening speech? Yeah. Imagine going to that rally. Very inspiring.

The first speech, the guy can't even finish it. This is a fun detail that I didn't include in last week's episode. But, you know, when I talked about how he was being a traveling evangelist and doing all these speeches and like no one was showing up to these speeches. Right, right. Audience of one. Well, one speech he gave. The title of the speech was something like, is there a hell or does hell exist? And somehow 50 people showed up to this thing.

It's a good title. Does hell exist? Sure. Yeah, let's, I don't know. And the newspaper covered it. And their spicy little write-up was something to the effect of, does hell exist? 50 duped people think there ought to be a hell. Wow.

He's not a good public speaker, but you can't tell him that. Yeah, clearly. Now, Norm, a lesser man might have been embarrassed by that piss poor performance. But I ask you, was Charles Guteau embarrassed? No. Hell no! Oh, wait a minute. Thank you.

Hell to the no, no. No, because that speech, what little of it he'd given, was changing the course of history. It was moving the needle toward Garfield. There was no doubt about it. As election day grew nearer, Charles Gatot found himself at church, dreaming about his future. What kind of political appointment would James Garfield give to him? This guy. He can't finish a damn speech. Charles didn't want to be too greedy, but he certainly deserved a big one. After all, he'd done so much for the campaign.

Yeah, one in a quarter speeches, basically. Norm, that's rude to give the fractions. I already told you he didn't much care for the crowd that night. There were other speakers. The conditions weren't good. The gas lights, you know, the torchlights. It was too much for him, so he sat down. He figured he might like to be named Minister to Austria.

Wow. What? That's a pretty big deal. Well, you heard about all he'd done for the campaign. Yeah, Austria is a pretty sizable country at that time. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Well, why not start small with like the Falcon Islands or something? Because he was not a small man. He was small in stature, but not small in ideas or impact. Thank you very much. Dream big. I mean, he could have asked for Secretary of State, but he had the restraint to not do that. You know, which I could have asked for anything. Sure. How about I be your vice president? As he daydreamed about the political appointment that definitely lay ahead of him, he thought about other aspects of his future.

He wondered if maybe it was time to get married again. Oh. Oh, you excited. You love a love story. No, no, because he was... You love a love story. You love romantic comedies. I do, but he sucked.

He's like abusive to his first wife. He wasn't like abusive. He was, in fact, abusive. He was literally abusive. But, you know, maybe that. That's all changed. Maybe it was her fault, actually. It's often the victim's fault in these situations.

I think we can all agree, okay, because this guy seems pretty stable, pretty normal, pretty cool. Kristen, you're always, you're always, um, that's where I'm looking for. Kristen, you're always pushing me to think outside the box. Yeah, yeah. So a guy like Charles Gatot who literally abused his wife, you're saying, well, Norm, think about it. it. What if it was her fault? What about it? We can't rule it out. Thank you for that. We absolutely can. This man was terrible. Well, I do have a love story prepared for you today. Nice. Get your hearts of fluttering, folks. That very day at church, Charles spotted a woman who

looked just perfect for him. She seemed rich. And also very eager to be with him. And even though they hadn't spoken. He knew that when he asked her to marry him, she would say yes. Wow. Was she, was her bosom, bosom, bosoming? Was it heathen? Was it heaven? Probably. That's the sign that you're rich back then. What? No. That's a sign that a man is writing about you and you're a woman character in a book, the heaving bosom. No. Yes. No. Yes. Now if you hustle your bustle around town, then I think you're a wealthy lady back in the day. Hustle and bustle around town? Hustle your bustle, the little bustles.

You know, they had the bustles in their dresses. Oh, when it gives you like a badonka donk? Yeah, the original BBL without the surgery. Is that what that's called? Yeah. The bustle? A bustle. Okay.

As election results began to roll in, Charles Gatow wrote James Garfield a letter. He, of course, included a copy of his speech, you know, the speech that, had basically won the election, and expressed interest in becoming minister to Austria. And he wrote, quote, I might possibly marry a very wealthy lady in New York sometime in the spring. Has he even spoken a word to this woman? Not one word. Charles then informed James Garfield that he and his soon-to-be wife would represent the United States government with dignity and grace. Oh, that's good.

Yeah. It was a bold letter. A bold letter from a man who, in reality, had done very little for the campaign. James Garfield didn't respond to it. Well, that's a shame. That's kind of rude, actually. Oh, Norm, you are being a little harsh. Charles Gatot didn't think so. He was like, hey, he's in Ohio right now. He's got a lot on his plate. I know he's going to do the right thing. Yeah. He let this one slide, and I think you should too. Okay. Charles Gatot has more grace than I do. So yeah, James Scarfield didn't respond, but you know who did get in touch with Charles Guteau?

Chester Arthur? No, that hot rich lady from church. Oh. They hadn't spoken, but he'd written her a lot of letters, and he'd gone to her house and knocked on her door a whole bunch, and he'd followed her home a couple times, and she had sent the police after him? Oh, hey, whoa. To ask him to leave her alone? I guess you can't tell a woman she's pretty anymore. You're lost, babe.

I didn't know love was illegal in New York. Charles didn't have time to worry about that crazy bitch because pretty soon James Garfield won the election, okay. Woo-hoo! Do we need a sound for that? Sure. All right, Garfield wins. Let's see what I got. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, because they were really proud that he'd been a general, so they called him general. Sometimes they didn't even call him President Garfield, just General Garfield, because that somehow felt better. shouting the battle cry of freedom Chris and I were talking earlier about the song Dixie and how it is a certified bop But it has no business being that catchy

Okay, you're saying you and me, no Yep, we both agreed You were like whistling Dixie And I was like, you've got to stop doing that That's Dixie. I know, I know. You swam in that southern soup for too long, my friend. Southern soup.

It's been brewing. So James Garfield won the election, and that meant that Charles needed to move on down to D.C., where he'd meet up with his old pal James Garfield, and together they'd figure out what political appointment best suited him. Oh, he wants Austria. Well, yeah. Now, does he speak any German? Maybe. Who knows?

You're acting like there's no logic behind this at all. All. Okay. In fairness, with the election over, Charles Gatot wasn't the only one writing nutty letters to James Garfield. Roscoe Conkling wrote one of his own, essentially telling James Garfield, hey, congrats on becoming president, but just so we're clear, you are president in name only. He wrote, quote, I need hardly add that your administration cannot be more successful than I wish it to be, nor can it be more satisfactory to you to. the country and to the party, then I will labor to make it. What the fuck?

Um, this guy is an asshole. Uh, the audacity. Yeah. The unmitigated gall. I have a new nickname for this man. Let's hear it. Roscoe, the balloon knot conkling. Oh, wow.

He's a butthole, right? Yeah, no, we get it. We get it and we like it. Actually, we don't like it because it's Roscoe Conkling. We like the nickname, but we don't like the man. There you go. Now, you may be asking yourself, why did Roscoe Conkling have such a poopy diaper? And I would say, just think back to the nickname Norm just gave him.

Well, James Garfield was in the process of selecting his cabinet members. And weirdly, he wasn't following Roscoe Conkling's direct orders. He was trying to be diplomatic or something and fill his cabinet with a mix of different people representing different. factions of the Republican Party. It was disgusting. It was disgusting. Now, Conkling does still have power here because he's got a faction so he can block a lot of these appointments, right? That's true. You can also throw a big, nasty fuss. I wonder what I do. Well, he's been doing that for a while. Why can't he do it all? That's what we're asking ourselves, and that's what he's about to do. So James Garfield did pick some of Roscoe Conkling's yes,

men. As you just pointed out, like you kind of, he's still in power, you got to work with him. Yeah. But as I think we've all learned by now, even when Roscoe Conkling gets a win, like, for example, dude, you're a Republican. A Republican is in the White House. That's a win. He didn't see it as a win unless he controlled the game from start to finish. So, with James Garfield's inauguration, just days away, Roscoe Conklin went bananas. James Garfield had selected one of his yes men to be the secretary of the Navy. And the dude had been like, yeah, great, I accept. But Roscoe hadn't given that dude permission to accept the nomination. So when that poor man was in bed, sick as a dog, Roscoe had his henchman kidnap him in the

middle of the night. And they forced him to drink this weird mix of brandy and quainine, which was a drug that they used to treat malaria. And it had this cider. effect of making people really dizzy and nauseous and blurring their vision. And if you had too much of it, you'd just die. They brought that poor man to Roscoe's apartment. And they held him there until four, this, I'm not making this up. They held him there until it was four in the morning. And finally, the guy was like, all right, stop, stop, please. And the next day, he wrote this letter to James Garfield, like, um, actually, on second thought, I do not want to be secretary of the Navy anymore in your administration.

Goodbye. I have to decline. Um, so he's got goons. Yeah. Conkling and his goons? Yes. Good Lord. A few days later, the dude who had previously told James Garfield,

well, yeah, I'd love to be secretary of the treasury. Thank you so much. Came to him and was like, hi. Um, actually, I don't want to do that anymore. I think I was followed here by a cartoon baby. Please help me. James Garfield was so frustrated. He had this enormous task ahead of him.

If he couldn't figure out how exactly to thread the needle, he might not get anything worthwhile accomplished. And it was so important that he make headway. People needed him. James Garfield's inauguration day was a momentous occasion. Frederick Douglass led the procession. It was incredible. Hell yeah.

A man born into slavery, stood alongside a man born in a one room, log cabin, both prominent, powerful men. Together, they were the picture of hope. They represented possibility. During the campaign, James Garfield had told black voters, I would rather be with you and defeated than against you and victorious. And now he stood in front of the nation victorious. In his inauguration speech, he spoke about all the things that mattered to him, black civil rights, literacy, a united nation, and also the fact that polygamy was weird and the Mormons needed to cut it out. Oh, did he mention the Mormons in his speech?

You know, it's so weird. I always forget that in this time period, boy, were they mad at the Mormons. And it's just, you know, you're going along with this speech like, oh, wow, and he wanted to do that. Oh, how great. What, oh, okay, polygamy. Sure, that doesn't seem like it's a huge issue, but that's, all right, okay. I always got that random grudge. Yeah. Yeah. The Mormons were kind of chased out of a few states. Kind of.

No, literally. They were, yeah. Missouri-Murman War. Threatened with death, yes. Future topic? I do want to cover that. What did the Mormons ever do to you? My God.

And by you, I'm talking to the politicians of the 1880s. Right, not me. Soon, the entire Garfield family moved into the White House. James, Lucretia, their five. children and James's mother, Eliza. She was so proud. Eliza and Peggy. Is that a Hamilton reference? It is. Very good. I did it. Eliza had given her youngest son every penny she'd had so that he could go to college all those years ago. And now he was in the White House. Damn, good investment. No kidding. It was such an exciting but also anxiety-ridden time. There was so much work to be done and they were all

going through this major change to their lives, but for James Garfield, the silver lining was that even though he held the highest office in the nation, he still got time with his family, because they were all under one roof. It was working from home. That was invaluable to him. His two oldest boys would be off to college soon. 14-year-old Molly was going to school. Their two youngest boys roughhoused and played in the new home. What a time to be alive. to be the president, to be present in his children's lives, to spend every day with the woman he loved more than anyone in the world, and to have brought his own mother,

the woman who'd believed in him and kept him safe during all the years when his childhood had felt so unsafe, into the White House. It was a beautiful thing, or at least it seemed beautiful from kind of far away. In 1881, living in the White House was gross. Gross. I mean, okay, we're going to hear some stuff. Buckle up. Granted, the White House was a much bigger, grander residence than the Garfields had ever imagined for themselves. So there was gratitude in that. And they appreciated history. But the House needed work. The location made it the perfect place to contract malaria at a time when people didn't exactly know how someone got malaria.

Yeah, I mean, Washington, D.C. is basically built on a swan. Yes. It was structurally unsound. It had been built out of unmordered brick. Unmortered brick. Just brick stacked? Sure. What could go wrong?

Water seeped into it. The whole house was damp all the time. Rats. Literal rats loved the White House because it was so dark, so damp, so full of delicious rotting woodwork. And then, oh, who farted? The plumbing system was completely inadequate. for a house of that size. A lot of the pipes had disintegrated by 1881.

And if you want to know how they knew that, there were holes in the floor. You could see everything. You could smell everything. It was disgusting. The White House was essentially a porous rat-filled mass, peppered with mosquitoes, sitting in a stew of human feces. It's not that bad, okay? Listen, we're going to paint this room.

We're going to do open concept. We're going to knock this wall down. Get the property brothers in there. It'll be fine. Yeah. And that hole in the floor where you're taking your shits, a piece of plywood, we'll cover it right up. Okay, Norm, it's funny that you say this,

because here's what I've got next. During their time in the White House, Ulysses and Julia Grant had tried to jazz it up a bit by putting down some carpets and some new drapes. But by the time the Garfields had moved in, there were holes in the carpet, and I'm guessing the carpets matched the drapes. I mean, they had tried, but...

Hey, hey. It was tough to get money for renovations at that time. You're the president. Is that how you want to spend your political capital? Yes. No, it doesn't look good. I'm just messing with it. Now, Lucretia did actually, I cut this part out, but Lucretia did manage to get some funding for renovations.

And so she did start working on it, partly because it really wasn't an inhabitable home. And she had young children in this place. Don't you mean it wasn't a habitable home? Inhabitable? I thought... Inhabitable means you can't habit it, right? I think I'm right. You think you're right. I'm not 100% sure I'm right. Hang on. Question of the week. Uninhabitable would mean you can't inhabit it. Hang on. Inhabitable.

Okay. What are... Oh. Am I wrong? Inhabitable. Suitable to live in. What's habitable then? I think it's when a nun puts on her habit and she's able to do a jig. Oh, habitable means suitable or good enough to live in. What the hell? Redundancy? Let's get rid of one of those words.

Okay, we're calling it. But, you know, what could the Garfields do? The White House, like it or not, would be their home for the next four years. Who knows? Maybe eight. I haven't gotten to next week's script yet. Yeah, don't be speaking for next week, Kristen. Okay.

For what it's worth, James Garfield wasn't thinking that far ahead. As his family settled in and the two youngest boys rode their bicycles down the hallways of the White House, James Garfield tried to adjust to his new life as president. Well, he needs to focus on who will be the minister of Austin. That is his top focus, right? I mean, get on it. Charles Gatow's waiting. It was hard.

He'd always been a man who valued his time. He needed time to work. on the big issues, time to read, to study, to strategize, to think. That's what he needed to perform at his best. But in those days, the president's schedule was set so that key working hours, so many key working hours. We're talking Monday through Friday, 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. We're spent meeting with literally anyone who wanted to talk to him. That's right. Folks, did you know that back in the day you could just go right up to the White House and meet the president?

Yeah. We've learned that a long time ago, Kristen. We sure did. On my old rotting decrepit podcast, much like the conditions of this White House, am I right? Yeah, yeah. You could say hi. You could ask for a favor. You could, gee, I don't know.

Follow up on your weird, pushy letter asking to be named Minister to Austria. Just a reminder here. James Garfield liked talking to people. He liked meeting people. But this wasn't that. When people came to the White House, it was usually to push their own personal agenda. Yeah, it's just people want stuff. It's not like a genuine meeting somebody.

Right. And they want a political appointment. So it's not even as altruistic as like, hey, here's this thing that's facing my community. It's, I want to be minister to Austria. And I think I've earned it. Yeah. I want to be the postmaster of Bootyville. Mm-hmm. We all do. Facing the line of hundreds of people every day, James Garfield said something that I've said when people get a little antsy around the free samples at Costco. He said they were, quote, beasts at feeding time.

Yeah, let's talk about that because, yeah, some of these people getting the free samples. They have no shame. They're not embarrassed. They will throw elbows at a 12-year-old to get to those samples. My biggest problem is that people that just block the entire aisle, you know, waiting for the samples to come out. You say it's your biggest problem. Folks, this man turns red. I don't turn red. The rage. No.

The rage. No. It bruise within me. I don't show it on the outside, though. Oh, okay. Through modern eyes, we can see this as an obvious safety issue. It's nuts that literally anyone could meet an. unguarded United States president. But James Garfield didn't see it that way. He didn't think that his

safety was in danger. In fact, the thing he thought was in danger was his mind. Facing four years with so many hours of his workday focused on randos, he worried about mental deterioration. He worried about not accomplishing anything meaningful for the American people. Now, that isn't to say that the threat of assassination didn't cross his mind. He did think about it. And he famously wrote, quote, assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning. And it's best not to worry about either. Hmm. That's poetic. Yeah. James Garfield's mother, Eliza, did worry about his safety, though, and his wife, Lucretia, was a little worried too. They'd both notice that people were a little graby, a little entitled. It made Eliza and Lucretia uneasy, but they really didn't need to worry

their pretty little heads because, yeah, technically President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated 16 years earlier and it had been tragic, but nobody really thought of that as something that happened as a result of him being president. They thought of it as more of a tie-in to the civil war. And the civil war was over, so no one needed to worry about the president. Yeah, and people saw as like an anomaly. Right. Oh my God, this is this wild thing happened. It probably won't happen again, though.

It definitely won't happen again. Yeah. And again, Lincoln had security. They just were doing a terrible job that night, okay? That's the thing about security. You really needed to be good. Yeah. And sure, political leaders and monarchs were occasionally assassinated in other countries,

but that couldn't happen in America because we have this thing called democracy. And why would you shoot a guy if you could just vote for a new guy? In another four years, am I right? Mm-hmm. Don't you think that's interesting? That was mentioned in both of the books I read, that there were these other assassinations happening in the world. But somehow we thought America was immune because of our system.

Right. Well, we had a functioning democracy. It was still... Barely functioning. Well, it was like the whole world was kind of watching the United States and seeing how, this democracy will work. Whereas, like, most of Europe was still running on, like, a monarchy. Right.

And so, yeah, and in a monarchy, it's like, well, they're never going to give up their position of power. So, yeah, we'll have to kill them. Whereas, yeah, the United States is like, well, you know, we have, you know, every four years, we have an election. We bring in somebody new. So, like, there's no need to kill anybody. We'll just vote them out.

But see, what's amazing to me is that that implies that the person who assassinate someone is operating from a place of logic. That's right. And, you know, hey, you go, you shoot Hitler, hats off to you. Yes, needs to happen. But I think it's wild to assume that every, you know, that that's the main thing is that, oh, these people who assassinate leaders are doing so with logic. And that person will definitely understand, hey, if I don't like this guy, I can wait it out four years.

I think they're just saying like the chances of it happening are less in the United States. I don't think they're completely writing off assassinations. Well, they are kind of writing it off because they didn't even give President Garfield a bodyguard. He could walk wherever he wanted. And I... Norm, hold that thought. In fact, the president of the United States didn't even have a bodyguard, which was actually a good thing because he probably would have just fallen in love with him like Whitney Houston did in the cautionary tale, the bodyguard.

Oh, man. This is why we're married. This is why. You've wondered why. Now you know, folks. Yeah. If by chance you're asking yourself, well, hang on, when did we get the secret service? Do you know this story?

No, I don't. And yet, you know the bodyguard by heart. Well, let me enlighten you on something else. I actually don't really remember a thing about that movie, just the song. Okay. That's fair. I know Kevin Costner's in it. And he's the bodyguard, right?

I actually never saw the movie. Oh, shit. I know. I mean, I know a little bit, I guess. Fun fact. The Secret Service. Wait, do we have Owen Wilson to back me up on this? Oh, um, yes.

Wow. Wow. Thank you, Owen. The Secret Service was created not long after Lincoln's assassination, but it was not their job to protect the president. At the time, roughly half of the currency circulating in the United States was counterfeit. So, for the first several decades of its existence, the Secret Service had one main job, and it was to stop counterfeit currency. Ah, I didn't know that.

Kind of cool, huh? I mean. Also, not good, but you know what I mean. I feel like they maybe should have been protecting the president. Right after Lincoln's dead. Yes. Yes. A weird choice.

Like, gentlemen, Lincoln is dead. And to make sure this doesn't happen again, we want to make sure there's no more counterfeit money being circulated. Because we think the assassins used fake money to buy all these weapons. So the president of the United States was unguarded, unprotected, and completely available to anyone who wanted to meet him. and Charles Guteau wouldn't have had it any other way. He arrived in Washington, D.C., not long after Garfield took office. He got a room at a boarding house, unconcerned about how he might pay for it. He knew that by the time rent was due, he'd have his political appointment and a nice big salary.

Yep, yep, yep. On Tuesday, March 8, 1881, Charles got up early so that he'd be one of the first people in line to meet the president that day. How early are we talking here? Not super early, because he got there and, oh my gosh, there were already so many people. He waited a few hours and ultimately decided to battle the crowds another day. He knew he'd get his political appointment.

He was basically best friends with all the top politicians. They all knew him. They all knew what he'd done to secure the Garfield presidency. After leaving the White House that day, Charles Guteau did a funny thing. He went to the Riggs House. The Riggs House had served as a government building for a few decades. But by 1881, it was a high,

high-end hotel that catered to politicians. And although Charles Gatot wasn't able to actually stay there, he arranged to have his mail sent there, and he hung out there, and he used their stationary, and he read their newspapers, and he sent more bold letters to James Garfield. Riggs House still around today? Oh, no, it got demolished. Damn. He wrote, I called to see you this AM, but you were engaged.

Dearest James. May I call you Jim? Later, he wrote that he'd changed his mind about becoming minister to Austria. Oh. He had decided that Paris would be a better fit for him. Oh, Jesus. Oh, he's dreaming even bigger. So minister to France?

Yeah, what? Oh, my God. It was an audacious request. Yeah, one of our biggest allies. Yeah, I'll be the minister to France. And that's the thing. No one wants that job. hanging out in France, who needs it? No thank you.

Oh, Paris, yeah. No one wants to be in Paris. In Charles's mind, it made perfect sense. In a letter, he implied that he kind of knew the guy who was the current minister to Austria, and he was a good dude. He didn't want to kick that man out of his job. But the current consul to Paris had been appointed by Rutherford B. Hayes, and it seemed like that guy needed to go. Am I right? Okay, I mean, Charles, yeah, I agree. anything from Rutherford's got to go.

I do think this is funny to hear that there is some logic. And he did actually write to the outgoing Secretary of State and say, hey, do you know who's going to be staying in their position, who's going to be leaving? So there is some logic to this. But it is completely illogical that he would be the one to get this post. Yeah, you need someone. This is a highly sought after position.

You need a somebody to be in that position, not a Charles Gattot. You need someone who, I don't know, can deliver an entire speech. Yes. A few days later, he returned to the White House. And sure enough, that day, he got inside. He gave his card to the doorman. He sat in a waiting room. An usher called his name.

He met with the president's private secretary, Joe Stanley Brown. And then he went into the president's office. He saw James Garfield right there in the flesh. Other people were there too, of course, high-ranking members of the Republican Party. Charles Gatotteau knew all of them, and they greeted him. James Garfield recognized him right away. He definitely wasn't just being polite. Hang on.

Hang on. What? What? Where are you getting this from? Well, this is Charles' take, and I don't know why you're questioning it. Well, when you said James Garfield recognized him right away, I would say, wait a minute. This, I mean, this is a classic thing of a good politician, and James Garfield was clearly a great one, is going to make everyone feel welcomed and loved and seen. Sure.

And he's going to be, oh, oh, yes, Charles Gatto, thank you for your help during the election. Yeah. What can we do for you today? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think I'm going to run for president. Oh, my God.

No, I'm not. Imagine what they would say about me. When the time was right, he handed James Garfield a copy of the amazing speech he'd given. My God, was there an old-timey kinkos? I mean, he must have had thousands of prints of this thing. I mean, yeah, printing presses. On it, Charles had very helpfully written... Kristen, wait a second.

What? Old-timey kinkos. In our last series, I told you about a man who was murdered and his entire job was printing things. No, I know. I just thought it was funny to say old-timey kinkos. I apologize. I was paying attention to your entire series. I didn't let my mind wander off into other areas of space and time.

I was there the whole time, baby, in the room. Okay. You were in the room where it happened. I'm going to try my best making Hamilton references. Very good. On the speech, Charles had very helpfully written the words Paris Consulship. Oh, my God. And he'd drawn a line linking him.

His name to the words, Paris Consulship. What if he gave him a drawing of like a stick figure, Charles Goteau, me, and then a little drawing of France. Me in France. That is essentially, yeah, drew a little Eiffel Tower. I don't know when that thing went up. But, you know, a beret, a baguette, we can't make it more clear. Yeah, I don't think the Eiffel Tower is up yet. I don't think so either.

Yeah, I think that was a World's Fair thing. 1900 World's Fair? Maybe. Anyway. I'm going 1920. Let us know. No, it wasn't 1920, Kristen. If I'm right. I'm going to look it up right now.

You know what? This room is uninhabitable with you in it telling me I'm wrong about the Eiffel Tower. I'd like you to make it habitable by telling me I'm right. It was constructed 1887 to 1889. Okay. Well, she was a little bit off. Sorry, gang. I know you're all rooting-tooting for me.

And it was for the World's Fair. 1889 World's Fair. You hate to be right. I just hate it. Charles Gatow left the White House that day, confident that the job was his. As the days wore on, James Garfield suffered from insomnia. He didn't make all the political appointments himself, of course. As president, he handled the important ones and delegated the rest.

But that didn't stop people from coming to his office and making demands. At one point he told his private secretary, quote, These people would take my very brains, flesh, and blood if they could. When he wasn't battling desperate office seekers, James Garfield battled other politicians.

He'd recently named James Blaine as his secretary of state, the magnetic man from Maine. And that had made Roscoe Conkling very angry. James Blaine and Roscoeckling were political enemies. One time in an argument, James had said that Roscoe Conkling had a, quote, turkey gobbler strut. And Roscoe had not forgotten that insult.

I found a old political cartoon of Roscoe Conkling as a turkey. Uh-huh. I mean, the insult stuck. With James Blaine in office, Roscoe was determined to make the Garfield presidency an ineffective one. And sadly, James Garfield's own vice president, Chester A. Arthur, was happy to help with the sabotage. But who cares about that, right? Charles Gattot sure didn't. A few days passed, and he hadn't heard back about Paris. So he went back to the White House. And this time, he got some very promising news from James Garfield's private secretary. Are you ready? Yeah. He told Charles that the papers had been forwarded to the proper channel. Your call is important to us.

Uh-huh. If that's not a brush off, I don't know what is. Charles didn't know what it was. He thought it was official. The job was his. No, Charles. I mean, the paper could have been sent to the trash can. And that's the official file. The paper has been forwarded to the proper channels. And by channel, I mean the dumpster. Uh-huh.

Just drop it through a floor in the White House into the disintegrated sewer pipes. Yeah, that poopy carpet. Use it as toilet paper. Days passed. Charles Gatow had nothing going on. So he went to Riggs House. He chatted with politicians. Sometimes he just sat on a bench in Lafayette Square, staring at the White House.

He's just waiting to hear it back. Got nothing else going on. Oh, you're going to wish he was just waiting. He sensed he could do more. So you know what? He did. He was staying at Mrs. Lockwood's boarding house. And one morning over breakfast, he noticed that Illinois Senator John Logan was staying there too.

Charles had met him briefly in New York, but he was sure that John remember him. So Charles figured out which room the senator was staying in. And just before 8 a.m. one morning, he knocked on the senator's door. Oh, my God. No one answered. So he tried the doorknob. And it was unlocked. Oh, good. Charles walked into the room and it was pretty big. And the senator was in the process of getting dressed. But he heard someone come inside and he was like, oh my God. So he went out into the main room and he was shocked to see this dude he did not know in his room. Yeah.

And to make things weirder, Charles Gattotteau started talking to him like they knew each other pretty well. So the senator was doing that thing that I think a lot of people would do of like, okay, kind of creeped out, but trying to be polite. He froze.

Charles handed him a copy of his speech and asked the senator to read it. And the senator said, um, okay, I'll read it when I have time. And Charles said, that speech elected the president of the United States. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He said he'd given that speech because he'd been promised that he'd be named Consul to Paris.

He said he'd already talked it over with President Garfield, and his next step was to talk it over with Secretary of State James Blaine. But first, he wanted the senator to write him a recommendation. Oh, yeah. This complete stranger I just met. Uh-huh. Yeah, let me give you a recommendation. The senator, who was still not fully dressed, mind you. Now, did he have pants on or no shirt on? Can we get a visual?

I'm assuming he wasn't, like, indecent, but definitely not like, ready to be seen. And yet there Charles Guteau was seeing him. I must say, Senator, that's quite the bold you have. Oh, my. Yeah, and then maybe he gets a recommendation. The senator was stunned. But he said, I do not know you, sir. I have no knowledge of who you are.

I can't recommend you. But Charles Guteau was insistent. He was like, you're the senator from Illinois. I'm from Chicago. I'm a constituent. You kind of owe me this. You know, we're both from Illinois. I bought you that drink.

You owe me this conversation. And the senator was like, okay, you're from Chicago. Where in Chicago? And Charles didn't really give him a straight answer because he, He kind of wasn't really from Chicago anymore. Yeah. Instead, he pulled out a sheet of paper on which he'd already written a recommendation for himself. And he asked the senator to sign it.

Just sign this, please. Oh, man. The senator wasn't totally sure what to do. Charles claimed to know him, claimed to have worked with the National Committee in New York. But he thought it was super weird that this guy had just barged into his room. So he gave him the polite brush off. Yeah, get him out. The next morning, Charles cornered him again.

And this time, Charles was much more aggressive. He was like, you are my senator. You owe me this. And this time, the senator was just like, no, dude. Not happening. Yeah, good. Now, here's what's interesting. Charles Goteau left that meeting feeling good.

Oh? Sure, the senator had given him the go-around, but that's the way these politicians work. They say one thing, changed their mind the next day. The reality is they were still very good friends, he and John. And John had said something about maybe mentioning his name the next time he saw the Secretary of State. So he basically had the Paris Consulship in the bag. Nothing to worry about.

Okay. This will not surprise you, but the senator didn't have quite such a sunny view on that whole conversation. And afterward, he went to the owner of the boarding house, Mrs. Lockwood. And he said, hey, I don't think you should let that guy be here. Yeah. Has he paid his bill, by the way? No, of course not. Of course not.

The bill's not due yet. So Mrs. Lockwood was like, really? Why? And he said, quote, I think he's a little off in the head. Mm-hmm. A few days later, when Charles Gattot's rent was due, Norm, you sniffed this one out, she discovered that he had vanished. All he'd left behind was a note saying that he would pay his bill

as soon as he received the political appointment that he had been promised. Oh, my God. T'was a shame that the Illinois senator had been such a dick to Charles Gatot, but fear not. He'd already written several letters to James Blaine, often on Riggs House stationary,

because classy. But his letters had gotten progressively more demanding. In one, he wrote that he'd given James some space because he knew that ultimately James would do the right thing, but, you know, now he was coming knocking. And in a subsequent letter, this is my favorite. He wrote that he was glad that James Blaine had been named Secretary of State because, you know, that job could have gone to someone else. Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh. Any number of people. What does that mean? What does he mean by that? What do you think he means by that? I don't know. Why is Charles saying that? Okay.

So. James Blaine is a well-accomplished politician. He's very deserving of Secretary of State. Right. but he was a civil service reform guy. And Charles Gatot, in his mind, he's a real spoil system boy. He's with the Roscoe Conkling team. Okay, Chester A. Arthur is basically his best friend, all right?

And so maybe he doesn't like that this Blaine fella got such a lofty position. No, he's trying to be condescending. He's trying to get the condescension on all the glasses nationwide. but he doesn't quite have the position to do so. So it just comes across as weird and kind of an overreach. Yeah, well, he's trying to get the condensation going. Yeah, I'm glad you're on board with this. Earlier you were saying I wasn't a scientist.

James Blaine is a Turvice Tumblr. He's not going to have to worry about it. An excellent point, Norm. Here we go. For some reason, James Blaine never responded to, Charles Gatot's letters. What the hell? I know.

Get that parrot. All right. What the fuck? Yeah. We're all thinking it. So, given no other choice, Charles Gattotot got bolder. He did something totally normal and not creepy. He tracked James Blaine's movements.

He noted the private entrance that James... So he's just stalking people now. Okay. What's wrong with that? He noted the private entrance that James Blaine used to get into work every day. And one morning, Charles... hung out there, waiting, waiting for a private moment. And sure enough, James Blaine showed up and Charles Gatot cornered him.

Some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this. Have you heard my speech? It was so fucking good. Sorry, I will stop. Oh, Minister de France, it's happening to me. He mentioned his speech. and James Blaine politely pretended to remember it. You know, it was fine.

A little annoying, a little weird. But it became more annoying when Charles Gatot kept showing up. Charles became a frequent flyer during James Blaine's office hours. Always pushing for that political appointment. Pushing, asking, reminding. But in that sense, he was like a lot of the people back then. He was just a misguided office seeker. This is kind of funny to me.

Benjamin Harrison, he would one day become president. Charles Gatotteau also harassed him about this. And Benjamin Harrison was nice to him but was like, hey, you know, you're not one of my constituents. I can't really interfere here. And later he was asked like, oh my God, so you knew Charles Gattot and he like came up? Was he weird? And Benjamin Harrison was just like, um, listen, I'm a politician. I meet a lot of people every day.

That guy didn't strike me as super weird. Yeah, I mean, they get these questions all the time. Uh-huh. Yeah. So, yeah, he's not going to stand out at that time. I think that's what's so alarming is that, you know, sometimes we want the bad guy to really stand out. But oftentimes... Above the crowd.

That's... What are you about to do? Are you about to seeing a goofy movie? Nope. Okay. Good. Because we've had enough. We've had our fill.

You mentioned Adam Sandler's close. last week's episode. Yeah, we've got some good, you know, people are enjoying the question of the week. Wow. Yeah. In those early days, James Blaine handled Charles Guteau

the same way that everybody else did, brushed him off. Near the end of James Garfield's first month in office, he and Lucretia hosted an event that was open to the public. For a couple hours, anybody could show up and make polite chit-chat with the president and the first lady.

Jesus. I know. He imagined this happening today. No. Pizza party at the White House. I can imagine that, but, you know. Oh, McDonald's party at the White House. Worth noting, Lucretia was really smart.

She had a mind for politics. But she was not good at this stuff. She'd been raised by very stoic parents who rarely showed emotion. And on top of that, she was shy. Yeah. In fact, decades earlier, during their courtship, James Garfield had been like, do you even like me? I am into you, but are you into me because I legit cannot tell at all?

Lucretia knew that what people wanted in a first lady was someone warm and chatty and super friendly. But the crowds and the noise and the constant handshaking just wasn't her thing. It didn't come naturally. She was no Mary Todd Lincoln. No, she wasn't. Future topic? As the afternoon wore on, she became so tired. She ached.

She wanted it to be over. And oh, God, out of nowhere, this man came up to her and said, How do you do, Mrs. Garfield? It's Charles Gatot. She nearly jumped. He was right next to her. She hadn't even heard him come up. He introduced himself.

He handed her his card. His name was Charles Gatot. He told her that he was, quote, one of the men that made Mr. Garfield president. Yeah, you and about a thousand other people. Uh-huh. Lucretia didn't think much about that moment, but Charles Gautau sure did. He'd talked with the first lady.

She knew who he was. She seemed to appreciate all he'd done for the campaign. Yeah. It was ridiculous, of course. Ridiculous to think that Charles Guteau was playing any kind of role in the nation's politics. James Garfield was the one in the country. thick of it. He hadn't been in office long, but by that point he'd already done something very bold. See, Roscoe Conkling's main source of power was the fact that for so long, he'd

controlled the New York Customs House. The New York Customs House was a source of tremendous financial and political power. About one-third of America's revenue went through the Customs House. And the collector got commissioned, right? the collector got very, very rich. Yes. So do you remember the Fifth Avenue Summit? Do I? The hottest thing in town when Roscoe Conkling had refused to meet with James Garfield

and he'd sent his henchmen to tell James Garfield that if he wanted their support, they needed to maintain control of the customs house. His henchmen had said that James Garfield had agreed to all their demands. But James Garfield always maintained that he'd given them kind of a wishy-washy commitment. Right, he didn't promise anything. And now that James Garfield was in office, he announced that he was giving control of the New York Customs House to one of Roscoe Conkling's biggest political enemies. Roscoe Conkling was incensed. And so was his army of yesmen. Chester A. Arthur, James Garfield's vice president went to the press and talked major shit.

He called for James Garfield's removal from office. Okay. It was a mess. Unreal. Unreal. His own vice president was against him. Roscoe Conkling, with all of his political power, was against him. So many people were livid with James Garfield.

He'd been president for like five minutes. And according to a lot of powerful people, he'd already fucked up. James Garfield knew he was doing the right thing, though. And of course, a lot of other people knew that, too. They knew that the country needed to change, but it would be a hell of a fight. And just as that fight reached a fever pitch, James Garfield got bad news. It was the kind of news that made politics and all the other stuff that had seemed so important a moment earlier, insignificant. I know what this is.

What happened? Lucretia got sick. Yeah, very sick. She had malaria. She developed a fever, and it rose, and it rose. he called doctors to her bedside so many doctors. Her fever continued to climb. James Garfield was beside himself. He and Lucretia hadn't always had a good marriage. In fact, for many years, they'd had a bad one. They were alike in their intellect and their curiosity, but so different in how they

expressed themselves. He was a golden retriever, and she was a black cat. In truth, they'd gotten married, not out of some deep, passionate love for one another, but kind of because their courtship had gone on for a really long time, and maybe they had a duty to marry each other. For years, they didn't connect. For the first five years of their marriage, they rarely saw each other. He was so busy with the war and with politics. Lucretia suffered miscarriages, alone.

They had their first child, and that child brought them so much joy. But when that little girl died at just three years old, the grief nearly tore them apart for good. That's a lot. Yeah. To have the miscarriages alone. Mm-hmm. Then to have a child and the child dies.

It was terrible. Ooh, yeah. Especially when that child was kind of, you know, there just wasn't a lot of love between them at that time. And so to have this child that unites you in a way and to lose that child. Yeah. It should bring you together. It was devastating. Yeah.

In the wake of their child's death, James had an affair with a newspaper reporter. What? Yeah. I didn't know this. You didn't? No, scandalous. Yeah. He had an affair with a newspaper reporter named Lucia Gilbert Calhoun.

He felt really guilty about it. About a month into it, he told Lucretia what he'd done. And Lucretia's response shocked him. She gave him two options. divorce her or go back to New York, meet up with Lucia face to face, and end the affair forever. James Garfield chose the latter. He wondered if he'd ever undo the damage he'd done to his marriage. He was ashamed of himself. But also, selfishly, he wondered if he'd given up his only chance at a passionate, romantic relationship. But in the wake of their precious daughter's death, and in the wake of their precious daughter's death, and in the wake of,

of his affair, Lucretia Garfield showed her strength, despite her own tremendous pain. She gave him a second chance. And so, he tried harder to. It hadn't been easy. But in the years since those first terrible years, James and Lucretia Garfield created a love that their younger selves would have never recognized. It was a passionate love. It was a sharing of a life. It was a shared purpose. It was deep and real, and because it came after so many years, it was precious to them both. By the time they entered the White House, they were solidly in love. And now, just a few months into his presidency, Lucretia was on her deathbed. As she lay there clinging to life, James told her what she meant to him.

He told friends that he would give up the presidency if it meant that Lucretia could recover. word got out that the First Lady was sick, very sick. And people worried. They worried for their new First Lady. And in that moment, that moment when the Garfields had so much sympathy from the American public, Roscoe Conkling did something remarkably stupid. He couldn't see that what people cared about in that moment was the health of the First Lady. He couldn't see beyond his desire to retain control of the New York Customs.

House. So he hatched what he thought was a brilliant plan. He would resign his Senate seat. He was certain of his own importance. When he quit, he was sure that there would be outrage, pandemonium. The U.S. government would just fall apart without him. The press would tear James Garfield apart. Wait a second. His plan is to quit and he thinks the public is going to be outraged about this? And, and he thinks that he will get the last laugh when his good friends in the New York legislature inevitably vote him back into office because that's what's going to happen. Because they have to fill his seat. Yeah. And he thinks they're just, they're just going to vote him back in. Well, yeah, because they all love him, right? They're not just secretly afraid of him and

hate him deep down inside and will rejoice at this chance to be rid of him, right? Right. No one would choose to get rid of him. Yeah, let me get rid of, let me voluntarily give up all my power and see if people give it back to me when I'm a huge asshole. This is, this is my favorite thing. This is the ultimate I'm taking my ball and going home thinking that people will beg you to come back. Well, yeah, it's like I'm taking my ball and going home, but everybody else is like, well, we'll just get another ball. We've got another ball right here. They don't need your ball. We've got a whole line of balls. Yeah. Balls galore. Don't clip that.

Meanwhile, across town, Charles Gatot was also seething with rage, also on the verge of a very ill-advised plan. He understood that the First Lady was sick, but why should that impact his political appointment? In next week's episode, Roscoe Conkling follows through on his very stupid plan. And Charles Guteau snaps. Oh. Yeah. If only they had appointed him to minister to France. None of this would have happened.

If only they'd done what he deserved. If only they had given into his demands. I do want to talk about Lucretia and James Garfield's relationship. Yeah? Because I love that. I think that is such a beautiful story. and I think it's a story more people need to hear. Why do you think more people should hear it?

I think especially, I was about to say now with social media, but I think it's always been the case that like people want to put forth this image, especially when it comes to their relationships, to their marriages. Like, oh, it was just pure love at first sight and everything was great and then we died, you know? Sure. And Lucretia Garfield did a very good job, and we'll see this in future episodes, of preserving her husband's actual legacy. And of course, she could have burned the letters, the evidence of his affair. She could have tried to present this idea that, oh, yeah, they did have this wonderful relationship the whole time.

But instead, she did, I think, the braver thing of giving people a real idea. of like, here's how we got to where we were. Here's how we got to this wonderful place. And I think it depends on what you've been through in life, how much maybe you appreciate that. I remember years ago, Michelle Obama started talking on the media circuit about like how a good marriage, a good long marriage, you can have bad years, like multiple bad years. And she talked openly about like, yeah, we had some bad years. And I remember at the time hearing that and going, oh, God, that's terrible. You had bad years.

You're saying, you know, five bad years and a 30-year marriage is, you know, not bad at all. You know, my younger self was kind of horrified by that. But the older I get, the more I'm like, no, I, that's real. And if you want to, you know, I don't know, maybe help people get to where they want to be, maybe part of it is saying like, yeah, you've got to work through some stuff. And it's okay if things aren't always great. It's okay if things aren't always good. Yeah, that's life. Yeah. Well, and I like the whole thing about the love growing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important to in a relationship. You want the love to always be growing. Yeah. Yeah. They had such an interesting

dynamic. You know, she was so stoic. And in one of his letters to her really early on, I mean, he's just like trying to pull it out of her. And he's like, just, you know, take your pen and just let it fly. Let it go. And she just couldn't. I mean, she just didn't have that capacity at that time. But then when they got back together and they were trying to kind of figure out, like, where do we go from here? She showed him her diary where she'd written all of her feelings about him. And he was just kind of stunned like, oh, she does have feelings for me. Yeah. And I feel like they both had to grow and mature into. She was shy and maybe afraid to be so vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I get that. Yeah. Mean Lucretia? Kind of alike in that way. You think so? Yeah. I think

so. I'm a shy guy. You are a shy guy. I can be a little shy myself. Oh. No. No. No, I can't be sometimes. Yeah, you can. Well, very good, Kristen. Gosh, so next week's episode is going to be... It's going to be a rough one. Explosive. Oh, wow.

What? I mean, that's true. I tell you what, I do love Roscoe Conkling. What a moron. Not reading the room at all. I'm going to quit, and I'll show you. He's just so full of it. himself. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is what the ego will do. Yes. Mm-hmm. Well, Kristen, should we

wrap up this episode? Let's do it. Kristen, you know what they say about history hoes? We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the book, Destiny of the Republic, a tale of madness, medicine, and the murder of a president by Candace Millard. The book, Dark Horse, the surprise election and political murder of President James A. Garfield by Kenneth D. A. Ackerman, plus reporting from PBS and the New York Times. Check the show notes for a full list of our sources. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast.

Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Join the Reddit community, our slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts Caruso and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio.

Bye! Bye! See ya. See ya.