Gentleman Boss: the Life of Chester A. Arthur

by Thomas Reeves. Knopf, 500 pages.

More an exhaustive overview of Gilded-Age U.S. politics then an actual biography, Gentleman Boss remains one of the few books to focus on America's forgotten 21rst president (he's so forgotten that he didn't even make it into the Simpson's classic "Mediocre Presidents" song). Chester "Chet" Arthur should have been an even more forgettable Vice-President, but Charles Guiteau changed that in 1881, killing President Garfield and altering Arthur's fate forever. Thomas Reeves makes a valiant effort to rehabilitate Arthur and for the most part he succeeds, although even he admits that Arthur might have achieved immortality if he had only been the bad President everyone expected him to me. Instead, he truly fulfilled the title of "caretaker President".



Arthur's life itself has occasional moments of fascination, from his Civil War career to his correspondence with his self-appointed conscience, Julia Sand, a spinster who wrote to him during his administration to give advice on how to behave. Arthur wrote back and even visited Sand, and though only a handful of letters have survived, they provide an unusual glimpse into the private life of a very private President. Then there's his successful manipulation of the press: Arthur's private life truly was private and with newspapers being our primary source of information for life in the Gilded Age, he remains something of a mystery. Perhaps this is why Mr. Reeves pads his book with such a thorough exploration of the politics of the time, from the divisions within the Republican party to the Arthur administration's tentative steps into a more extroverted foreign policy. Although Mr. Reeves should be commended for his research, time and again he loses focus on his supposed subject, at times threatening to undermine his own purpose: he wants to re-introduce us to a forgotten President, only to occasionally forget about him himself.

While an understanding of the politics of the time are essential to understanding Arthur's political career, Mr. Reeves might have been wiser to focus the story of the era through the lens of Arthur himself. This is the angle employed by Kenneth Ackerman in Dark Horse (reviewed here), a book that explores the same era but succeeds in explaining complicated political maneuverings while painting the emotional lives of the period's leading political figures.

Still, in some ways Mr. Reeves achieves his purpose: Arthur is revealed as an almost classical character who changes his corrupt ways after fate elevates him to the highest office of the land. No doubt another biographer might take an opposing viewpoint, but this is Mr. Reeves' thesis and, when he remembers, he proves it admirably. There is something appealing in an Arthur who attempts to use the Presidency to redeem his life of backroom deals and secret winks. Mr. Reeves also hints at Arthur's emotional struggles - after neglecting his wife Nell, he was apparently deeply grieved by her sudden death just a year before he and Garfield were elected.


Nobody but a true history geek would even contemplate reading this book: authors like Sarah Vowell, Candace Millard and Scott Millar are doing a good job making Gilded-Age politics accessible to all, but Mr. Reeves seems to be after a more academic crowd. Still, the Gilded Age is a part of Americana that gets very little attention even today, even though the events of the time played a significant role in pushing the US onto the world stage. The Arthur administration was one of the first to make overtures to the international community, prompting former Secretary of State James Blaine to ask why America should "take part in...the internal affairs of other continents? We shall either be told some day to mind our own business or else be forced to admit goverments to participation in the questions affecting America." It's a good question, Mr. Blaine and one which we're still asking. For this reason alone, both Gentleman Boss and the era it's set it may demand a closer examination by anyone interested in wonder how America got to where it is.

Related Links:
"Robert Todd Lincoln: A Man in his Own Right" by John Groff
"Dark Hourse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James Garfield" by Kenneth Ackerman
"Benajmin Harrison" by Charles W. Calhoun
"Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character" by Alyn Brodsky