The Republicans: warriors for science and progress
Many orators tour the same speaking circuit that Charles Francis Adams’ boss traveled. Some of these rally speakers are local young men who use the Wide Awake movement to springboard themselves into political careers. In Ohio, a young adjunct college professor known by his students as Jimmy Garfield emerges from Wide Awake meetings as a popular radical whose speeches about forcing “seismic changes” to America are published by the Wide Awakes and the Ohio Republican Party. Obsessed with Charles Darwin and mechanization, his generation is miles ahead of America’s leaders with regard to adherence to science. James Garfield leads rallies of young people to see themselves as the vanguard of a second American revolution, he rhapsodizes about young people fighting to renew the promise of America. However, once the future President works his way into power, the amount of radical change his party is actually willing to undertake decreases greatly. During the time of brutal monopolists and robber barons, the “people” who his Party actually helps became, increasingly, the corrupt and criminal bankers and businessmen who lord over American life. When Garfield refuses to keep the corruption gravy train rolling he is assassinated.