The question came up at a post-inauguration feast (oysters! champagne! grilled sardines!) and one of our party did not believe Chester A. Arthur was, in fact, a president. “He’s not a president,” she said. “The Seattle Times just slipped him onto the front page as a joke.”

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Well. Not only was Chester Alan Arthur a president, he was a fancy president. Some facts about our man Chester, courtesy of Wikipedia (mostly):

• Mark Twain liked him—and Mark Twain hated everybody—saying: “It would be hard indeed to better President Arthur’s administration.”

• Not only did Chester have an awesome name, he was surrounded by people with awesome names: Roscoe Conkling (his political mentor), Uriah Stone (his Continental-Army great-grandfather), Charles J. Guiteau (his predecessor’s assassin, who shot president Garfield and shouted “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts… Arthur is president now!”), Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen (his Secretary of State), Cornelius Newton Bliss (one of his pallbearers), and so on.

• Chester was part Native American. (Did everybody know we had a part-Native American president?)

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• Chester was considered a snappy dresser.

• People called Chester “the Gentlemen Boss.”

• Chester’s inaugural address was all about how, even though Garfield was shot by a crazy man (and killed by his doctors, who poked and prodded his wound with unwashed hands) things were okay in America.

• Chester led the effort to establish the Greenwich Meridian and international time; he said paupers, criminals, and the mentally ill couldn’t emigrate to America; and tried to clear the civil service of nepotism and corruption. He vetoed a bill saying Chinese people couldn’t come to America, but signed a 10-year moratorium on Chinese people. (Apparently Mark Twain didn’t like Chinese people.)

• Chester took 1 am walks to clear his head, and rarely went to bed before 2 am.

• Chester died of Bright’s disease (kidney failure) while on a health-vacation in Florida that didn’t go so well.

• You can buy a Chester Alan Arthur t-shirt here.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

34 replies on “Who the Hell Was Chester A. Arthur?”

  3. More factoids:

    1. Arthur was probably our most overweight president.

    2. Arthur unintentionally invented the 7th inning stretch in baseball. He was at a game one time, wanted to stand up to stretch his undoubtedly cramped legs, and everyone else around him, not wanting to offend, rose as well. This occurred, of course, betweeen the top & bottom halves of the 7th inning of the game he was attending.

    3. Arthur had a very long political ancestry; he was prez in the 1900’s, but there were still Arthur’s in politics well into the 1950’s & 60’s.

  5. Chester Arthur will never match the greatness of President William Henry Harrison. He won the (first modern) election after swift-canoeing Martin Van Buren as an intellectual elitist out of touch with “real American people” with a “log cabin and hard cider” campaign devoid of real issues. Harrison fell ill with pneumonia after delivering his (two hour long) inaugural address in very cold March snowstorm without wearing a hat or coat. He lapsed into a coma and spent his entire administration (31 days) comatose and caused the nation absolutely no harm…differing sharply from another presidential candidate I could name.

  6. His daughter Ruth was the name sake for the candy bar Baby Ruth, and not the Great Bambino Babe Ruth. He was also the President When the Brooklyn Bridge was finished. I should know I did a report on him in the 4th grade.

  9. @6, I don’t know what grade you got in the 4th grade, but your post doesn’t pass muster here on Slog. The Baby Ruth bar was, in fact named after the slugger, although the candy company did insist that it was named after Ruth CLEVELAND, daughter of Grover Cleveland — not Arthur. They were lying. But there’s no connection to Arthur at all. See http://www.snopes.com/business/names/bab…

  12. Didn’t we have to memorize this stuff in elementary school? I’ve long since forgotten the names of all the presidents, as well as about half of the state capitals.

  14. What was really interesting about him is the fact that he was elected by the party bosses (who were some seriously corrupt mo-fos) and they figured he was just going to handle things business as usual. He proceeded to turn around and stop a lot of party corruption. He also sold a lot of things in the White House. So while he is a surprising man when it came to ethics, he wasn’t so keen on the whole idea of recognizing the potential historical worth of objects.

  18. 1. Arthur was probably our most overweight president.

    2. Arthur unintentionally invented the 7th inning stretch in baseball. He was at a game one time, wanted to stand up to stretch his undoubtedly cramped legs, and everyone else around him, not wanting to offend, rose as well. This occurred, of course, betweeen the top & bottom halves of the 7th inning of the game he was attending.

    3. Arthur had a very long political ancestry; he was prez in the 1900’s, but there were still Arthur’s in politics well into the 1950’s & 60’s

    These are all factoids about William Howard Taft, not Chester Alan Arthur. Arther was president from 1881 – 1884. Taft was Teddy Roosevelt’s chosen successor in 1908, but Teddy than ran against him as a third party in 1912, paving the way for the clusterfuck that was Woodrow Wilson.

  19. Meags, I think you’ve stumbled on the secret of Arthur’s appeal. In just 16 comments, Sloggers have mistaken Arthur for three different other presidents.

  22. Chester Arthur, a British subject at birth, was the first usurper to obtain the POTUS by subterfuge. Obama is the second usurper having engaged teams of lawyers at huge expense to cover up and/or seal all records of his birth, college years, and actual citizenship. More at the link:
    http://is.gd/aI1G

  24. Henry James spoke fondly of Arthur, describing him as a modest first citizen who would quietly drop in on friends when taking time off from official duties at his home in New York City. James compared him favorably to Teddy Roosevelt, whose presidency he described as having all the trappings of an imperial court.

  26. Your link to the inaugural address isn’t working (although it comes up on a Google search) and some other website says that he never gave an inaugural address at all. I’m very confused.

  29. whoever is the great great great great grandchild of PRESIDENT ARTHUR I d like to talk to you. I am Dr. Larry Myers, a New York City playwright & professor at St. John’s University. My new play is “Reincarnation of President Chester A. Arthur.” Contact me at Laurencelarry1@aol.com
    Thank you

  30. just read parts of Dr. larry Myers new play’ “reincarnation of president chester a. arthur’
    awesome intriguing authentically theatrical & newsy

  31. True, Chester Arthur had distant native ancestry on his mother’s side, but more recently, Herbert Hoover’s vice president, Charles Curtis, was half Kaw Indian (i.e. ‘Native American’ for the P.C. twits) and actually looked somewhat Indian, a rarity amongst those who claim Native ancestry. The P.C. types hate facts like these because they challenge the P.C. dogma that anyone darker or more ‘ethnic’ than a Frenchmen was treated like a leper in the U.S. for most of it’s history.

  32. Professor & playwright Larry Myers once again shows brilliance in bringing truth and wit into the lives of engmatic people in history. Dr. Meyers brings so much to life. Thank God for him.

  33. there seems to be great interest in NEW YORK PLAYWRIGHT LARRY MYERS’
    new work “Reincarnation of President Chester A. Arthur.” The blogosphere is buzzing about this cutting edge dramatist’s latest stage adventure-
    witty mysterious enigmatic idiosyncratic!

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