Letter to the president

No, not the current president. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

Bit of a sad story today. Poignant though, and bittersweet. Also, quite old — and yet I hope, relevant.

It starts in August 1881, when a woman named Julia Sand wrote a letter to U.S. Vice President Chester A. Arthur.

This was during a very macabre time: the two-month death watch between the July day when President James Garfield was struck by an assassin’s bullet, and the September day when he died.

The nation’s eyes were on Arthur as VP, and almost nobody was happy about it. He’d been a blatant, political machine compromise candidate. The highest office he’d previously held was Collector of New York, which was a 100 percent pure patronage job.

The national mood was basically: Really? This guy is about to become president of the United States?

Enter Sand... She was 31, eccentric, fairly wealthy, unmarried, and often sickly, confined to her home, with no connection at all to Arthur—except that they were both Americans and New Yorkers.

Remember, women couldn’t even vote back then. Yet, she…