Really Dead Presidents

For some indecipherable reason, anytime the death of a president is mentioned, only two names come to mind--Lincoln and Kennedy.  In actuality, eight men have lost their lives while occupying the highest office in the land, and four of these were killed.  So let's give them their due, whatever it may be.

The record holder for shortest term is William Henry Harrison, elected in 1840 as a Whig (a precursor to the Republican Party).  This man had held numerous public positions and was a military hero.  When he was took office in March, 1841, his tough exterior belied a weaker constitution.  It was cold and rainy, yet he refused to dress for the weather and spoke for 2 hours at his inauguration.  Within days, he exhibited the obvious symptoms of a cold, and, after only 31 days in the White House, he died of pneumonia.  As this was the first such occurrence, there was a moment of governmental panic before Vice-President John Tyler succeeded him.

The much maligned Millard Fillmore became president as a result of the passing of his predecessor, Zachary Taylor.  He was "Old Fuss and Feathers," a war hero and Whig like Harrison, who served for two years before he lost his life to gastroenteritis.  He was only 65 years old.  This led to such rampant and persistent speculation that he had been poisoned that his body was exhumed in 1991 for an autopsy.  The conclusion was that a gastric attack was the sole culprit.

The third president to lose his life while serving his country was Lincoln.  There's not much to say here.  The story of Booth and Ford's Theater has been told in poetry, song, and book for almost 150 years.  Suffice it to say that the 56 year old Rail Splitter died on April 15, 1865, as a result of a shot to the head.  His death plunged the country into despair and more years of darkness following those of the Civil War.  As a side note, he had been a Whig who, like most of his fellow party members, became a Republican with the birth of the GOP.

In 1881, President James A. Garfield became the second assassinated president.  He served only 199 days before Charles Guiteau felled him with two bullets.  The assassin was disgruntled that he had been denied a federal post, and Garfield was simply walking down the street to a meeting.  Some interesting things came of this.  Alexander Graham Bell invented the metal detector to help find the shot lodged in the president's spine, and the civil service system was created to promote professionalism in governmental positions, as well curb favoritism and the expectation thereof.  The 49 year old Republican also died from complications due to infection, not the actual wounds Guiteau inflicted.

The great Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901 when Leon Czolgosz, an unbalanced anarchist, shot William McKinley, previously elected for a second term on the Republican ticket.  The man fired two rounds after approaching the McKinleys at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.  One bullet was removed, but the other could not be located.  After over a week of suffering, the president finally died at the age of 58.

In 1923, Warren G. Harding died of "natural causes" almost three years into his term.  Or did he?  The newspapers reported that this Republican had succumbed to food poisoning, and rumors abounded.  Harding was somewhat attached to his First Lady, many believed unnaturally so.  He insisted that they never spend a night apart, that they meet as often as possible throughout the day to talk, and that "Flo" read him to sleep at night.  The two had no children, and a woman can only take so much.  Her lack of great misery at his loss, combined with the public knowledge of their relationship, led many to insist that she had poisoned him.  It would have been simple enough.  They were on a cross-country tour, during which he had become the first president to visit Alaska, and his last meal in their train car was one of oysters.  Historians have since concluded that Harding died from a heart attack at 57.  So Flo is off the hook.

The final two who died in office are still the subjects of movies, TV, plays, books, and other materials.  Both were Democrats.  Franklin Roosevelt suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died at 63 while visiting Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945.  This was during an unprecedented fourth term.  Perhaps the most notable thing about his death was that daughter Anna had arranged for a former mistress, Lucy Mercer, to meet her father at the family cottage there.  He left behind a world at war with evil and a wife at war with her feelings for him.

And the eighth president who passed away while in office was John F Kennedy (elected in 1960 at 43), assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.  Here again, the Warren Commission Report investigating the incident, the Zapruder film of the actual event, eyewitness accounts, newspaper reports, and tons of theories all exist and primarily contradict each other.  But Lee Harvey Oswald did kill Kennedy and then meet with the same fate at the hand of Jack Ruby.  This loss changed life for everyone.

There have been dead presidents indeed, for all sorts of reasons.  Think of the Enquirer headlines for some, like Harding:  "She Did It!  Wife Confesses To Friend That She Couldn't Take It Anymore!"  Also remember that the Secret Service existed solely to police the U.S. Treasury until the McKinley assassination, when its role expanded.  And who created the organization in the first place?  Ironically, it was Lincoln, a man with a fatal sense of destiny.

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