MURDERING THE PRESIDENT-Fred Rosen and Hank Garfield

Despite Bell's effort to save Garfield, however, and has never before fully revealed, the interventions of Garfield's friend and doctor, doctor D. W. Bliss, brought about the demise of the nation's twentieth president. But why would a medical doctor engage in such monstrous behavior? Did politics, spetty, jealousy, or failed aspirations spark the fire inside Bliss that led him down

the path of homicide? Rosen proves how depraved indifference to human life second degree murder rather than ineptitude led to Garfield's drawn out and painful death. Now more than one hundred years later, historian and homicide investigator Fred Rosen reveals, through newly accessed documents and Bell's own core respondence, the long list of Bliss's criminal acts and malevolent motives that

led to his murder of the president. The book that we're featuring this evening is Murdering the President Alexander Graham Bell and the Race to Save James Garfield, with my special guest, journalist and author Fred Rosen, and great great grandson and novelist Hank Garfield. Welcome, gentlemen to the program. Thank you very much for this interview.

And the phone rang and it was Fred, and we get to talking him and he introduced himself as a true crime writer who was investigating the murder of my great great grandfather, And so we get to talking about writing and this and that and the other thing, and finally Fred says, you know, you sound like a pretty normal guy. I thought I was going to get one

of the Kennedy's on the phone. So I'm sitting there, you know, in my bathrobe, sipping my coffee and my house in Maine and thinking how much how much more normal can can you be? So over the course of the next several years, Fred and I talked on the phone and corresponded a lot, and there were some you know, frustrations and getting his book published. But here it is, and I was happy to write the forward.

operate without damaging him. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, excuse me, they never taught me this in school, you know. And then the other thing Dan was this and you'll get it, and you know, which is doctor Bell was writing it like he wanted somebody to investigate what happened, and you know, he was like leaving something behind, and

so that really got me interested. And I didn't know anything about any of this, you know, And I mean, to me, James Garfield was a cipher and so I started looking into it, and it took another fourteen years to you know, of you know, this snat, to finally get a publisher to publish the book, and in the process, I discovered that he that James garf you know, unlike what has been reported by the popular press, not only was James Garfield not assassinated, he was deliberately murdered by

his doctor, Willard Bliss. And I found all the evidence, and Bell left a lot of it behind, you know, And I felt, as I went along in this whole process, that he was leaving it behind for somebody to find it.

And I just happened to be the dude, you know what I mean, And that was it, you know, and I put it together, and you know, I was finally lucky enough to get a publisher that was willing to publish this because in other books that have been published about James Garfield, they claimed that it was a lack of sepsist that led to his death. That's not true.

It's just not true. And you know, because of the fact that I was not only an historian, but a homicide investigated just like you are, I was able to get into it. And in the process, as I became friendly with Hank and we became friends, it became personal. You know, I mean, this is my friend's great great granddaddy. You know what I mean. I mean, how am I supposed you know, I gotta do something about this? So I did.

So tell us what well that influence was. What did your family tree look like in terms especially politically, But tell us a little bit about the family after James Garfield.

bit more. But it wasn't anything that you know, I mean, yeah, I grew up with it, and I remember my father got mad at me one time for trying to get into a high school basketball game but I didn't have the money for admission, and say, I said something like, you're turning away the great great grandson of a president, and rightfully, my father, you know, upbraided me for it,

because you know, it's just being an arrogant teenager. But uh so, so as far as my day to day life went, being the descendant of a president was no big deal.

I mean, you know, but so. But but you know, as far as my day to day life, until I got interested in the topic of his death and what could have been, you know, what could have been is an interesting topic because you know, when I read Fred's book, and I started reading and and and some other things, and I started reading about the mistreatment that he suffered at the hands of his doctor. I got mad. I mean, I know it happened one hundred and forty years ago,

but you know, it made me angry. And you know, I was surprised that there is that immediacy to my reaction, because he could have been He was a very learned, incapable man, and he could have been a great president.

pretty common knowledge. This guy was one of the bravest Americans that ever existed, and during the Civil War he rode under enemy fire. It's a really cool. It's my favorite scene in the book. He rode under enemy fire to save the army. We had two armies, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Ohio. He rode under enemy fire, to say, the Army of the Ohio at the Battle of Chickamaugua in Georgia, and they

were the Confederates were shooting at this dude. And when he got to where he had to go, his horse collapsed from bullet wounds. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, you know. And I, you know, Hank and I have discussed about what would have happened in history had James and I prefer I like to call him James, So Hank and I we called him Jack for a long time, you know, like the teen the show. Yeah, but we don't want to get we don't want to give a a a plug. Donald Bellisario produced the show.

But that's another story. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. This guy was willing to live, to give up his life to save the Union. He was willing to do this to make sure that African Americans were free. And you know what, as I'm writing this, I'm going, where are these people. This guy was cool, you know, I mean, you know, you know, if this was a different age, Steve McQueen would be playing them, you know what I mean. Uh, he was just.

nobody's talking about she who saved lives. Well, James Garfield did. And I might add he was a Republican.

you're right in there, bucking his own system. He he really didn't make it himself popular within his own party because he had these ethics. He had this thing that he didn't want the bribery involved with the postal service, so he stood up to people in his own party. So again, very unusual, I mean unusual period. So this

was a remarkable man. Now what I found was amazing is then early on there is the chance circumstance that doctor Bliss who eventually becomes a doctor, but at that time he's just d Willard Bliss, and twenty year old Dames Garfield is just a guy that well he was born in a log cabin, so very much like this Abe Lincoln kind of thing. He came from humble roots, and at twenty years old he wasn't so successful. So Fred tell us what he was doing at twenty years old?

And how did he meet doctor or pardon me, d Willard Bliss.

you know, in a wallet. He put the you know, and he took off. It was a hot day, so he took off the jacket that he was wearing and the the the wallet fell out of the pocket. When he realized that, he retraced the steps and he finds some dude holding the wallet, and it was Willard Bliss, and they introduced each other and they became at that moment friends, and Bliss gave him back the wallet, and then Garfield went to school and Bliss went to Grand Rapids, Michigan,

which he was on his way to relocate. And at that point they you know, they had like a friendship, but they didn't. It wasn't like they kept in contact until much much later on. However, Willet Bliss was associatepath and so what he did was he leveraged his association with James Garfield eventually to help him in his career. And this guy turned out to be the name of

this show is true Murder with Dan Zupanski. This guy turned out to be one of the worst his I've ever covered because he used his association with James Garfield and subsequently his association with Abraham Lincoln to make money even though he was the worst piece of you know what you could possibly imagine? Did I say that? Well?

this book. But introduce how this doctor Bliss becomes involved with Abraham Lincoln and subsequently the story of assassination.

call it Dan? Do they call that? Do they call it in Canada vet's hospital.

men who was one of the aides in the war. Anyway, long story short, this is where it really gets interesting. Bliss thought he was an inventor, and Lincoln with finances inventions, and they all failed. And so what happened was eventually the President Lincoln, you know, went to Ford's Theater was shot by John Willis Boot And it happened that by coincidence, Charles Leal, a doctor from Yonkers, New York, was there, and Leo worked for Bliss at the at the hospital.

So after, you know, after they treated Lincoln on the spot, they moved him across the street to uh to Pyrson's boarding house, and then they summoned various doctors to come in out. So what does he do. He summons his boss, who's Willard Bliss. Will get this. This is the one part that's really interesting. Bliss was supposed to be a surgeon. And in those days, what they did was when they tried to find the bullet in a person's body, and then we're talking eighteen sixty five, they used a wire

to which was attached a piece of porcelain. It was called a neloton probe, and when they put it into the wound, if it touched the bullet, the porcelain would turn green. Well, for some reason, doctor Leo would not allow his boss to even touch President Lincoln. Somebody else did it, another doctor, you know, stay and I'm looking at this, and I'm going, what's this about? You know?

And that got me into continuing to look at what Bliss's record was subsequently after President Lincoln died, and what I discovered was that he used his association with Lincoln's assassination to help propel his medical career, even though he never treated him. And subsequently, in the eighteen seventies, doctor Bliss claimed he had a cure for cancer, which even in those days people said, this is a bunch of crap. That's when I knew I was dealing with a criminal.

South America, and Bliss claimed that this bark could cure cancer. Dull, you know, and he tried to market it very successfully, and it was marketed and people, you know, brought into this sham and again there's you know, there's there's nothing unusual here. You know, you're talking to the guy whose first true crime book was Doctor from Al You know.

So this was a doctor from l so he claimed that he found a cure for cancer, and people brought into it though there was no really objective reporting on this, including from the New York Times. Sorry, you know, they were my first job out of graduate school. So the left and I want to do his criticize the Times, but there is going back eighteen, you know, seventy something, you know, and the bottom line is that you know, he he get a lot of money off you know, like any Charlottan would.

And there was a third candidate from Ohio, sort of a favorite son candidate from Ohio named John Sherman. And Grant had been out.

after the Civil War. He had gone into Congress from Ohio, and on the thirty sixth ballot, the convention turned to him as a compromised candidate, and all the all the half breeds and the people who'd been supporting Sherman, they sort of marshaled forces against the Stalwarts and uh gave Garfield the votes to to become the nominee, and which eventually led to him getting shot.

kind of unify the party. And he chose first words when he shot my great great grandfather or something along the lines of I am a Stalwart and Arthur.

shows up, but his word gets really interesting. He doesn't let Willard Blyss touch the president when it came time to explore for the bullet, and the President said, this surgeon general does it. And I'm going, what's this about? You know? Se go a little bit forward, you know. And what happens is Bob Lincoln, who is the President's son, he's not around while his daddy is getting treated because hey man, it's like really upsetting. But he knows about

Willard Blyss. And so when fade out, fade in, when James Garfield is shot, it happens that Bob link And is the President's Secretary of the War. I was about to say defense, but it was, you know, different, And so he he summons the same dude that treated his dad. But he doesn't realize that his dad was never treated by Bliss. So Bliss shows up, and Bliss has already had all these problems, you know, up and down as far as his reputation, and he's already been found to

this dude. Bliss ran the other way at bull Run. Okay, he he was a coward and he but he managed to use the right political influence to get him out of it. But nobody knew this. So the bottom line is Bob Lincoln summons him as secretary of War to treat Jams Garfield and as soon as Bliss goes up control. That's the operative part of this.

Uh So, the bottom line is that if his if he had not been treated.

So what did happen? But before we do that, Fred, let's introduce because there's another very important character in this book, to say the least, Alexander Graham Bell. Now he's born in Canada in the United States and he's a bona fide inventor. So how does he come what is he doing around this time? And what's his influence and what's his thatcher and what is he working on? Before James Garfield is shot, step.

this stuff. And simultaneous to this, he winds up going down to you know, he gets in tight with some dude in Leland who is dad he is friends with. And this guy's got a daughter, Mabel Gardner, Mabel Wardner, who is a who's deaf, and so Alexander Graham Bell, who by the way, always looked older. I love this part. When I read it, Prispell talked about it. Dude, he had his beard, you know, and he's one of those people with the beard who looked older and he knew it. Well.

He winds up going down to Boston and he's with this millionaire dude and he's educating his seventeen year old daughter, Mabel, and he falls in love with her. But he but he's like, oh man, he's ten years older or something like that, you know what I mean. And it's so fascinating because I didn't know any of this. Like what happens is Bell, he doesn't have any money. Gee, that's not something I can relate to, duh. And he decides, amen, I got to get the money to marry this girl.

So you know what he does. He decides to try to invent a method of communicating by telegraph two ways is opposed to one way, and he tries to sell that and it does. And what happens is it turns out that some big shot in New York is working with another dude on this and he tries to steal his idea and Alexander Graham Bell, I mean, Dan, this

dude's in action hero. He basically tells this guy, f you okay, And eventually what happens is he decides to work on the phone, communicating through a phone you know, you know, and he decides to do that, and that's where to me it really gets interesting because it turns out that, as I point out in the book, the day that he will showcase or introduce his invention the telephone at the Philadelphia Exposition June twenty fifth, eighteen seventy six, simultiney,

George Armstrong Custer is riding down into the Little Bighorn Valley to his eventual destiny. And George Custer is in the book earlier when he was a courier. Yes, sir, he was a courier. By the way, we're I haven't mentioned this to you, Hank, but we're Our agent is sending out the proposal. So I proposed putting Chris Hemsworth in as as as a cust my agent, and my agent goes, Fred, is this a superhero flip? I said, yeah,

you know, but seriously, seriously, here's what happened. So, you know, it's fascinating stuff to me, you know, because they don't teach any of this stuff at school, and I don't know why, but you know, Bell is you know. It turns out that there was another dude who was trying to rip him off at the time in terms of

his invention. And while this is happening, you know, Garfield's wife and I cut back and forth in the book is proceeding alongster line, and James is the head dude in Congress in the House of Representatives, and Ulysses Grand who is not the nicest guy in the world, I might head sends him to Montana to make a treaty with the Salish Indians also known as the flat At Indians.

And on the way there he passes a group of dudes doing a buffalo hunt and in that group are Fat Masterson and why Europe And that got me into this, you know, getting into you know, how Americans treated Native Americans. And I discovered that back in the eighteen thirties when Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. I don't think parliament Dan would ever do this, Okay, But Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and they took all the Indians from

the East Coast. They moved them over to what became Oklahoma, also known as Indian Territory. And there was only one representative in Congress that spoke up against it, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, Okay, And I think that is fascinating stops, you know what I mean. And isn't it interesting when you find out that heroes you've grown up with on TV and so forth were real, let alone,

they really believed in what they did. And James Garfield goes out to Montana and he's up against the wall. If he doesn't make a deal with the Indians, they need to move him from one reservation to another. If they don't do it, Custer's gonna come in and shoot him. And James makes the deal. And that's what gets me

about this about Hank's great great granddaddy, you know. And as we're talking, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking to myself, oh my god, thank God to James Garfield, because without him, Hank's not here, you know, And I mean it, and you know, you know, this is real stuff to me. Dan, you know what I'm saying. I don't have to tell you what it means to work with people who are whose family have been victimized by murder.

tell us how he becomes involved. We alluded to it. We talked about the first metal detector. It's incredible, the first metal detector.

his wife. And then he's going to go north to Massachusetts where he went to school, and he's going to go to a school union. Well, Charles Gateau was was a what today we would call a a not as sociopath, not a psychopath help me out, guys, yeah, thank you, schizophrenic exactly. And so what happens is because of the fact that this, you know, this is in those days. If you worked for a president now it's only eighteen eighty one, it's not that long ago. It's eight you know,

it's by tank seven, maybe one hundred and thirty years ago. Well, if you worked for president and you know, you would be able to get an audience with the dude and say, oh, give me a job so good Toe shows up at the White Houses to the President, give me a job, and the President says, take a walk, basically.

Bottom line is he winds up showing you know, James goes to this to the railroad station in eighteen eighty one in July, Goodteau meets him in the in the railroad station, comes out of some waiting room and shoots him twice, and with the second bullet does the first bullet doesn't do any damage, the second goes into his back, and nobody knows at that point it's been safely what we would call today safely insisted. He goes down and at that point Putou gets arrested. Garfield gets taken to

the White House for treatment, at which point. Another dude on the scene is Bob Lincoln. I call him Bob because that's what his daddy called him. Bob is the Secretary of War, and he calls in various doctors to treat the president, including Willard Bliss, who had treated his daddy. But he doesn't know Willard Blisz didn't touch him. So Bliss comes in. And at this point Blisz has and has had a hard time because in the eighteen seventies he was trying to promote his cancer cure, which everybody

said was a bunch of crap. And now he's got a chance to make a lot of money and become really famous and say, you know what he does, Dan, he makes sure that he is the head physician. He takes control and nobody else is releasing medical bulletins but him. Oh my god, you know, it's like you know, and and because of the fact that he knew Garfield from

years before, people think the guy's cool. Nobody realized and the President him, yes, well, you know, as you know, as you're saying that, Hank, I'm thinking, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking to myself, oh man, you know, this is my friend's great great granddaddy, you know, and you know the press, you know, But it looks any of us could be conned. Let's face that I've been I've been coned, you know, and we've all been conned. And then you ever met gone.

He doesn't tell anybody this. He takes the Nelton probe, which I mentioned earlier, the piece of wire with a piece of porcelain on its tip, puts it into the wound and guess what he's exploring for the bullet without using anesthesia. So he's torturing the president. Now, a lot of other historians have talked about the lack of sepsis, that's not what killed President Garfield. And that's the whole

point of the book, and his time goes on. In the next couple of months, Bill Bliss continues to do this, and then Alexander Graham Bell reads about this, God bless him, and he's up in Boston, and you know what he does, Dan, He says, you know, there's got to be a way to you know, look for this bullet without you know, just exploring for it, without you know, going through healthy tissue, you know, cutting it up. That's when he comes up with the idea to use magnets and so forth for

an invention. He calls the induction balance to locate the bullet in the president's body, and he subsequently uses it on clinical trials with civil War veterans and in every single case he can locate the bullet every case. And then he gets summoned to the White House finally by Bliffs, to explore for the bullets in the president's body.

say text, but the telegram. The telegram he sends it. He sends a telegram to the way Dan and he tells Bliss get rid of any metal around the president because what I have here is a medal detector. Okay. So now Be shows up at the White House with a guy named Painter who is his assistant and he's ready to use this invention to find a bullet, just like he did with all these other individuals. And guess what happened. Bliss won't let him use the invention. He

decides he's going to do it himself. And he claims the bullet is, let's say, on the left as opposed to the right, and he's so egotistical he doesn't want anybody to get credit for finding the bullet where it isn't. Well, the next thing, you know, doctor Bell is using the invention and only here, you know, there's a bell attached to it. And the idea is that when the bell rains,

that's where the bullet is. Well, all of a sudden, there's all this this interference, and so he goes back to his you know where he you know, in Washington, where he's got his headquarters, and he says, I don't understand this, and he tries it again on other individuals and it works, and I don't know, maybe a couple of weeks later, and he's and he's corresponding with his wife the entire time. All his correspondence is in the

Library of Congress in the United States. And now he goes back a second time, and he tries it a second time and he can't. You know, he's getting the same result all of the you know, these sounds that it doesn't make any sense, and he is what happens. Then shortly afterwards, Garfield is moved by Bliss to New Jersey to die, but Alex Bell is not giving up. He goes back to the layhouse and he finds President was laying on a mattress that had an inner spring,

which screwed up the whole experiment. And he wrote about all this. And when I read all this stuff that he wrote, I realized what he was doing. He was laying the groundwork for somebody to come forward at a future date and prove that Bliss murdered the president. And I just happened to be the dude you know that picked up on this. And you know, any of us could have done it? Who are or you know, like you know you could have done it. I could have

done it. Whoever, as long as you know what people familiar with murder investigations, and the real question then becomes what's the motive. Well, the answer to that one is Bliss couldn't afford to have somebody else be the dude who solved it, who rescued the president. He figured it's got to be him. It was his ego. And that's why doctor Willard Bliss is guilty of second degree murder, which in the United States is depraved indifference to human life.

And my friend on the phone over there in Maine, his great great granddaddy got screwed by this guy. But we're sitting it straight right now, and that's the best I can do. You know, I can't prosecute him. I tried, by the way, I tried again. I tried. I called up a prosecutor in Washington. I said, can you prosecute a guy is dead? They said, Fred, we can't do that, right.

a fool of a doctor. So what I wanted to illustrate is that one of these again very profound and fascinating story is is that Alexander Graham Bell is the real investigator. He's a real detective himself. He's reading missives about this ridiculous rectum feeding. So what does he get from that crazy idea about rectum feeding and the idea of of of Bliss's contention that he's gaining nutrients and nutrition via this rectum feeding.

exact year. But there's there's a doctor who is able to determine and it's pretty this is interesting stuff that uh food is processed and our stomach okay, and then it goes through the the you know, the the help me out here, guys, the the yeah, the intestines, thank you, gee, you must be a writer. And it goes through the intestines and this is established stuff in medicine. Okay, it's

a book. For God's sakes. We'll get this, Dan, get this, Bliss the sides he's going you know, Garfield is like fading, duh, He's going to feed him through blood that he's going to pump up his rectum with quote unquote nutrients. Excuse me, what you know? You know this guy, this guy makes Dracula look like a good guy. And this twenty years

before Bram Stoker wrote the novel. So what he does is he pumps he gets this blood that he then gets combined with broth and others crap, pumps it up the President's rector and he then claims he's feeding him, and it works because the president has, you know, a bowel movement whatever the point being, scientifically it had already been disproven. The kicker to this is that he's doing all this without anesthesia. And James Garfield was determined when he was shot that he was going to act like

the president, meaning he wasn't going to chow pain. He was going to be a roic. And he did. But the guy was obviously in great discomfort subliicsius, you know, pumping this crap up his wreck them blah blah blah. Okay, he called it a nutrient enema, and I might add he wrote about it. He wrote a pamphlet about it which is quoted in the book and he references, Now this is eighteen eighty one. Oh Dan, this is great.

The guy references the ancient Egyptians. Excuse me, you know, hey, amen, look, if I had a chance, I pumped up charl Nstin's wreck them. But that's another story. You know, you guys are both the lad of that one. Come on. But seriously, so this is what Bliss is doing. But this is after Alec Bell's invention quote unquote fails. And the worst part of this whole story is this Bliss talks to the press about Alec Bell's invention and says it's a

piece of crap. It gets discredited even though it works. And so in nineteen oh one, when William McKinley is shot, then it's in the book. There is an X ray machine at the panem exposition where he's shot in Buffalo, but he's not near it. The only invention on the planet, on the planet that could have found that that was portable, that could have found the bullet in McKinley's body was the induction balance. But it was in the Smithsonian Institute

sho you know, in the back room someplace. Because Bliss had deliberately discredited it in eighteen eighty one with the press. It's all document And that's really what gets me about this, you know, is this guy was such a piece of work, you know what I mean? And he so really will it bliss cost the United States of America to presidents? How would our history be different? How would Hank Garfield's

family's life be different? You know what Hank writs in the in the in the forward, murder ripples through generations, You know what I mean, Dan, I don't need to tell you this year. Get it, you know, and you know it's it's just, you know, there's nothing I'm saying that people who would be victims can't relate to. But now we're talking about very very very eyes steaks, Hank.

get your response to this. As the bulletins from the Friend and the Dear surgeon about James Garfield's health, and in turn, James Garfield, again bucking up and being the strong man and taking the pain, also was corresponding with his wife. So his wife, like the public and like a lot of people, thought he was on the mend. Wasn't that what tell us about what you thought about finding that out? And tell us a little bit about that great?

the edge of and uh uh. So, you know, when the train took him up to New Jersey, there were people lining the tracks to wish him well. And then a few days later, the train brought his dead body back from New Jersey and people were lining the tracks, flowing, throwing flowers on the tracks. And I think the President himself was kind of cognizant of the of the that that, you know, his presidency would be too short to really

be remembered, which is what's happened. But but you know, during that time, the whole country kind of came to a standstill that summer, and.

to locate that bullet. So either a combination of ignorance and ego and incompetence lead to leads to this this death. But what exactly how does this person that has a bullet in him that shouldn't kill him, how does it end up killing him, and as soon as he dies, what is Bliss's behavior? What are some of the things Bliss does. I'm talking about demand for money? So just tell us about the what really killed him and how did he kill him?

He was covering the tracks. Now today it would be different, okay, because in those days there was no such thing as a doctor killing you know, at least two people didn't know about it, a doctor deliberately killing patient. And again the point here is we're talking second degree murder, which in the US, and then you can tell me how it works in Canada. But that's depraved the difference to human life. Okay. So Liz is basically covering his tracks and then what happens, oh my god, after that, and

he testifies against Bouteau trial. And by the way, this took place very quickly, within months, and Boutte has been of course sentenced to death, and he gets hung. You know what, you know what Bliz does. He builds the government a fortune for his mental for the care of that became the president. And the Congress comes back and says, buddy,

you're full craft. You don't deserve this fun. And he argues back and forth over it, and finally he makes sentiment to whatever you know, and and that is apparently the end of it, and shortly after that or you know, within I don't remember exactly the years, but Lucretia Garfield, who was known as Crete, great name. Don't you think

I need this? A great name? And if you have another daughter named her Creete and she ends up going to South Pasadena, California, it's in the book at the very end, and she buys a house there and that's where she lives the other days. And a buddy of mine who I went to high school with, used to go buy that house all the time. You kind of bought it for two point five million dollars. Two point five Dan, that's American, not Canadian. So did I answer your question? You know, I just I'm going on and

on about this, but I don't mean to. It's just that this guy really bucks me. And you know, when I'm talking to the family of American victim as Hank Is, I get very emotional about it, you know what I mean. It doesn't make a difference that it was one hundred years ago. It's full of next you murder, ripples, fro generations.

office and so forth. So I would have to say that, I mean, there there's certainly you know, there there was the the you know, I was asked by another interview where you know, have I ever gone to the White House, as you know, a descendant of a president. The only time I've ever visited the White House is when I was in eighth grade, and I was just a you know, a regular tourist. So I was never really attempted to, you know, leverage my ancestry like the White House or anything.

So really it didn't you know, it didn't affects me in any way other than you know, people people would find out my last name and ask me about it, and now I tell them truthfully, yeah, I'm a presidential descendant. But you know, so what I get up in the morning, I go to work like anybody else. You know, I live a fairly you know, normal life. I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I don't do I don't I don't have secret service protection.

How's that? Okay, here's the deal. I had an agent and she sent the proposal out to some dude and and you know, went out to some dudes and you know, two thousand and sixty thousand and seven, and uh, some dude had major publishing. Now called me in fore, you know, make it as short as I can, calls me in for conference. You knoww that goes? This guy shows me, HENK, You're gonna love this. He shows me he's got Wikipedia information on the on the Gilded Age. In this schmuck.

Jee I say that schmuck says to me, oh, this is all about the Gilded Ages, that you know it's not, and he considers the book and then rejects it. And at some point after that I had another agent who represented the book who was another schmuck. You know, remember something. Okay, I'm a New York Deaths fan. What the hell do

I know? So then finally what happens is I woke up one night in November of two twenty and fourteen, I'll never forget it, and I said, if I don't write three books did I have in my list, call them the bucket list, and I die tomorrow, I'm gonna regret it. This was one of them. So my agent, Judy Copage, who had agent could die Hard, sent it to Sam Thorrens, who was the editor at the Atoma Books. She was from the Weapon since that, yeah, man, we're going to do it. Shortly after Sam bought the book,

Tatomac was bought by University of BRASSPA Press. So for five minutes, I basically was, as we call it in the business, as you guys know, I was widowed. But the thing is, I think what really was going down here was this. Nobody really gave her crap because James Garfield, pony served a belt five months in office before you were shot. It wasn't personal, you know, it wasn't personal. It was just that, you know, Okay, it's what you know. But you know what, here's what got me though, Dan,

this is what really gets him. I don't know. I was thinking about this and I said, I gotta ask Dan this. You know, when you go in to a school in America, they have, you know, like a poster of old presidents. I don't know if they have that Canada, Dan of the time ministers. Yeah thing, yeah, okay, good, excellent. So there's this poster of James Garfield. You know, he's what he would do is in at you and I learned and I'm looking at this and I'm standing to myself.

This guy was murdered, you know. And as I said, as I said earlier, with you know, al Bell left beyond him betrayal for somebody to follow, and I just happened to be the dude that followed the trail. And I don't think it's any accident that Alec was a great Canadian and then became a great American. You know, that's why we're having this discussion today. And this was

so in terms of selling out. The other thing was that when Candice Millard published her book Destiny of the Republic, which is still on the Best Yellow List a couple of you know, in two thousand and eleven, I want to say, she claimed that it was sepsist and the treatment of President by his doctor's plural that led to his death. Well, goldless, miss Millard. I don't know her, but she's not a homicide investigator as far as I know.

You know what I mean. And on ninety half that when I when I investigated, I don't know if I've told you this. When I went to Grand Rapids, which is where Bliss lived, do you know that cost of the references too? Where were risks were missing for the files? What the hell is that about? Not said some of this stuff before? You know. But I'm not accusing anybody of anything. Please don't misunderstand me. I don't need to be sued again, Okay, but you know the references were missing.

You know, I was looking for, you know, for background stuff. This none was you know, did Bliss come from there? He had gave me a Parker as well, and so forth and so on, and but this information was missing. Now there's no I'm not talking you know, there's no conspiracy here. We're not talking conspiracy, nothing like that, you know what I mean? Whatever it is, it is, but you know, I think it's incredibly important get it straight

and to get it to it the right way. And most importantly, most importantly, the United States of America owes a death to the Garfield channel. They need to pay it,

you know. And whether it is money or recognition or whatever it might be, that in the matter is James Garfield saved our country, our country during the Civil War, and he comported himself as the president when he was shocked, and he's never gotten the acknowledgement that he should get from the official sources of history, articial, forever governed beta term in our country. Do you know what I mean? And I'm Dallas Bell. When he trying to help the president,

it was a comedian sist. What needs to be acknowledged. It wasn't at that point a Scotsman. Yes, he came from Scotland, God blessed Scotland. Okay, nobody completely can respond like Sean Connery, do you know what I mean. But here's the thing. This guy he was he was an action adventure of hero and when you when you know, in the book, I talked about how he handled you know, handled himself throwing the boss of fire and heat, that

he go for things. He was a guy who was a deemocratic and he came forward to help the president of the United States. And you know what, why isn't that acknowledged? And I think it should be acknowledged, you know what I mean? And I think it's and you know what, you know, I sent you an email today and I wonder about this dance. Do they have a monument up Ballop del In on Aerio where his family settled. He had he had a laboratory there. You know, this

is a guy who he was a cool dude. And by the way, when the Kinley was shot and his invention could have detected the bullet and president, but what he was doing on the time he was having he was he was having you know, fight the experiments, you know, And so it just seems to me that you know, if I get over, I realize, just stop me, because I keep going on, which is good. People have to speak together. We will have to speak together.

like Maine without owning a car. Nine years ago I decided that that was not going to own a car for a year and see.