Chester Arthur was a political hack. Throughout his career he got ahead by patronage. In 1871 he was appointed Collector of the Port of New York and used his 1,000 employees to further the partisan interests of the Republican party. His salary was $6,500 but he got to keep a percentage of the cargoes and fines and so made $50,000 a year, more than the President. In 1878 political reformers cleaned out the New York political machine and Arthur was fired.
In spite of this, the Republicans chose Arthur to be their Vice President in 1880. It was his first and only election, and he and Garfield narrowly won. A year later, Garfield was assassinated and political hack Arthur became the 21st President of the United States.
As President he surprised both friends and enemies when he followed his own light. He called for both Civil Service reform and sound monetary policies. He fought to abolish the income tax and lowered tariffs. He vetoed a Chinese exclusion bill and wasteful projects.
Going against his Republican Party, he supported the first comprehensive United States Civil Service legislation. It was the beginning of a new era of reform in national politics. From this point on, government jobs were given based on a person’s ability instead of a person’s politics.
All of this made the Republican party mad and cost him the nomination for a second term. It didn’t really matter because he had an unrevealed sickness and died a year and a half after leaving the Presidency.
Journalist Alexander McClure later wrote, “No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired … more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe.”
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Adapted from “Chester Arthur,” no author given, < http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/History/presidents/Presidents_21_Arthur.htm > and Wikipedia.org, “Chester A. Arthur,” < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_A._Arthur >.