Fall is finally here (though you’d never know it from the thermometer). With September dwindling down to its final days, it’s a good time to share something I recently discovered.
Only four U. S. presidents have taken the oath of office outside the nation’s capital. What does that have to do with September, you ask? Two of them occurred during this 9th month of the year. There were no inaugural addresses, no inaugural parades, and no inaugural balls. Instead, they were brief, solemn affairs held amid sadness.  
(In case you’re wondering about the other two, Calvin Coolidge recited the presidential oath inside his family’s home in Plymouth, Vermont, upon Warren Harding’s death on August 23, 1923. Interestingly, Coolidge was the only president sworn in by his father, John Coolidge, a justice of the peace and notary public. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll recall Lyndon Johnson was inaugurated onboard Air Force One in Dallas, Texas, following John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Also worth noting: LBJ remains the only president ever sworn in by a woman, U. S. District Judge Sarah Hughes.) Now back to September. 
Ironically, this month’s two presidential inaugurations both followed a president’s murder.
On July 2, 1881, a deranged and disappointed office-seeker shot James Garfield as he prepared to board a train in Washington’s depot. In office only six months, he’d barely had time to make his mark as president. Hit twice (once in the arm with the other shot going through his back, splintering a rib, and stopping in his abdomen). 
Within hours, a dozen doctors probed the president’s wounds with their bare fingers and instruments. The problem was, none were sterilized. Many American physicians had yet to be convinced antisepsis was real. Garfield paid the price for it.            
At first, the president improved. Then he took a turn for the worse. It was thought a cool coastal clime would help. So Garfield was carried out of the White House for the final time on September 5 and taken to Long Branch, NJ, where he could see the ocean. But it wasn’t enough. He slipped away on the night of the 19th. Not because of injuries caused by bullets, but from an infection caused by his doctors’ unsterilized hands.
A 12-week deathwatch finally ended for Vice President Chester Arthur. He took the oath in his New York City home Sept. 20, administered by a state court judge. That made some people wonder if it was official, because a state official wasn’t authorized to inaugurate a federal official. Returning to Washington on the 21st, Arthur took the oath a second time from the U. S. Supreme Court Justice, just to be sure.
Twenty Septembers later, another assassin cut short William McKinley’s presidency. He was shaking hands in a pavilion at a world’s fair in Buffalo on September 6, 1901. A man walked up with a handkerchief wrapped around his hand. But it was no bandage; a gun was hidden inside. McKinley was hit twice in the abdomen.
Again, his doctors were optimistic the president would recover. So optimistic, in fact, that Vice President Theodore Roosevelt went on a hiking trip in the Adirondacks. But gangrene set in. Notified that McKinley was failing, he rushed to Buffalo on the 14th. McKinley had passed away by the time Teddy arrived. Stunned, he accepted an invitation to stay at a friend’s home. At 3 pm some 50 VIPs and family members crammed into the family library. Roosevelt had sped to the scene so quickly, he had to borrow appropriate clothes to wear for his inauguration. Newspapermen were there, but for some strange reason were prohibited from taking photos as Roosevelt took the oath from a federal judge. 
[Worth noting: McKinley’s assassin was found mentally competent to stand trial, tried, and executed within 45 days of the president’s death. Talk about swift justice!]
There you have it. September’s two presidential inaugurations, each as different from the quadrennial display of pomp and circumstance in Washington as could be.
There’s a melancholy quality to this month, a kind of sorrow at seeing summer slip away. Maybe losing two presidents has something to do with the twinge of sadness that’s always in the air every September.
Have comments, questions or suggestions you’d like to share with Mark? Message him at jmp.press@gmail.com .