President James A Garfield, the First Leftie

 In a few days we will vote for our next president. I recall reading how President Hayes rushed back from the last leg of his Western Trip to reach Fremont in time to vote for James A. Garfield. He was the first president to serve as a professor, college president, and a minister before taking office. Born in poverty in 1831 in Mentor, Ohio, Garfield was the last president to have lived in a log cabin. He enlisted in the Civil War and rose to the rank of brigadier general by age 26, becoming the youngest ever promoted to that rank Following the war, Garfield returned to Ohio where he served nine-terms in the U. S. Congress.

At the deeply divided Republican National Convention, he was considered a dark horse candidate. But Garfield, in fact, received the GOP nomination on the 36^th ballot. In those years, presidential candidates did not hit the campaign trail like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. But according to one of Garfield’s biographers, more than 5,000 people converged on his farm in Mentor on a single day in October of 1880. Among them was a group of Germans. Garfield addressed them in their native tongue. It is believed to be the first time a presidential campaign speech was given in a language other than English.

Garfield Home, Mentor, Ohio

Courtesy of National Historic Sites

Taking office in March 1881, Garfield’s ability to write, read, and speak in several languages were skills that impressed many Americans. He was the first left-handed president. Only 10% of the population (myself included) are lefties. Living in a right-handed world makes some of us appear awkward, uncoordinated, and at times accident prone.  However, lefties seem to have the edge when it comes to the presidency. James Garfield was the first, but since World War II there have been 7 more leftie U. S. presidents!

Sadly, President James Garfield was shot only a few months into his presidency by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker. He lingered for three months. Today it is believed his death came about from infection and hemorrhaging brought on by endless probing of the wound with unsterile instruments. Dr. John B. Rice of Fremont, then a U.S. Congressman, was not one of those who searched for the bullet, but he did visit Garfield at the White House. Later he wrote a detailed letter regarding the President’s condition. More than 100,000 Americans traveled to Washington, D, C. to view Garfield as he lay in state. You can visit his beautiful home in Mentor, Ohio and the impressive  Garfield Monument in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery. 

Some psychologists think lefties are more creative, artistic, have better communication skills, physically better fighters, and have greater divergent thinking skills. In case you are interested, here are the other southpaw presidents: Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan (probably a natural leftie but forced to be right-handed), George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.