Safire's New Political Dictionary.

• Author: Stein, Jay W.

Safire's New Political Dictionary. By William Safire. Random House, 201 East 50th St., New York, N.Y. 10022. 1993. $35.00. xxvii, 930 pages.

Both reviewed by Jay W. Stein, research librarian and consultant in Chicago. He is a former professor of political science and education, with service in government and academic administration.

A biographical segment of two very different contemporaries who also shared some common reality is the challenge that author James C. Clark meets in his account of the assassination of President Garfield. Although the name of a president heads the title of the book, the subtitle and chapter topics encompass the broader contents of the legal system and politics of the time, along with the civic and medical response to a tragedy.

The book is straightforward and objective narrative, reading almost as relaxedly as good fiction. The author resists the inclination to offer a critique or a comparison with modern-day events and views. He sketches President Garfield's election and short term of office, along with his family and other preoccupations. He tells the story of Charles Guiteau, the killer, and some of his psychological drives and strange behaviors, which implicate ambitions for political attention and a government appointment.

Both personages shared the years of the Civil War and its issues, President Lincoln's assassination, and the mid-19th century religious revival and commune movements. Each came from humble origins; each believed he was a patriot destined for greatness. Guiteau repeatedly verbalized his belief and grounded it in a divine calling, whence he anticipated glory for and from the nation. The book covers the Garfield assassination plot and its execution, the care given the dying victim, and the funeral in 1881. The last two chapters cover the trial and execution of the killer, Guiteau, in 1882.

Achiever and failure

James Garfield, the victim, succeeded in nearly everything he tried. Guiteau, the murderer, failed in nearly everything, except the two gunshots with which he felled Garfield. His abused wife divorced him, he tried preaching at one of evangelist Dwight Moody's revival meetings, he launched a newspaper, but the bank refused him a loan in order to continue. He sought lecture bookings, billing himself as "The Eloquent Chicago Lawyer," but audiences found him incoherent and mumbling, and sometimes they jeered. Still thinking he had an evangelist calling, he published a book, The Truth, much of it plagiarized. But it did not sell, so he left the printing bill unpaid, as he was repeatedly wont to do also with rent.

In the heyday of the spoils system, Guiteau was among the thousands besieging Garfield for a job. He preferred a diplomatic post abroad. He wrote many letters and cultivated interviews, but without success. Personal and political disgruntlement led to his determination to kill the president, reasoning also that doing so would enhance the demand for his book.

Just two bullets

The shooting occurred at the Washington train station as the president was about to leave the city. The first bullet grazed his arm, the second struck just above his heart. Eight men carried him to the ambulance; a dozen others...