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Plans to disrupt 1887 ceremony fell short

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By Tom Stafford, Staff Writer 9:11 PM Sunday, November 15, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Initial reports were that the statue to honor assassinated President James Garfield had been unveiled amid “a perfect specimen of Washington spring weather.”

But even the May 12, 1887, Springfield Republic hinted at gusts of controversy.

“General Warren Keifer a central figure,” a headline said, “while Boynton is supposed to rave and gnash his teeth in the background.”

Readers of last week’s Looking Back story will remember Civil War Gen. Henry Boynton as the dean of the national press corps who traded barbed accusations with Keifer in a bitter dispute when Keifer was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Curiously, Boynton’s name showed up only in the headline on May 12; it appeared nowhere in the story. So the next day, he seemed the logical candidate as the unnamed leader of a “scheme” to interrupt Keifer’s oration.

The plan was to do so by firing a canon, the Republic reported, but “failed through the bad management of his enemies ... (who) fired before the orator began.”

Later, when both President Grover Cleveland and Gen. Philip Sheridan were interrupted by the playing of bands, that, too was thought to be part of the conspiracy.

Although Cleveland and Sheridan were “not a little perplexed” at the interruptions, the report said Keifer not only “escaped the wrath of his designing enemies,” but said he hadn’t had a prouder day.

“The congratulations he has received” on his speech the paper explained, “have come largely from men he had classed as his opponents.”

Boynton, readers were left to assume, was left to gnash his teeth in the background.

»Renowned Urbana sculptor created the monument Article, C1

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