Editor says, what if Alexander Graham Bell was able to look in the right place? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the August 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.

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Editor says, in reality Garfield died of infection after twelve different doctors inserted unsterilized fingers and instruments in this wound in the president's back searching for this bullet. Later the detector was proved to work perfectly and would have found the bullet had Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss (who was a Doctor of Medicine but whose given name was also "Doctor") allowed Bell to use the device on Garfield's left side as well. In authoring this article we have repurposed content from Wikipedia.

Eric Oppen commented on 2012-08-07 08:07:18 ~ Without Garfield's death and the impetus it provided, Civil Service reform would have likely come more slowly. A lot of the impetus behind it was because Guiteau was a disappointed office seeker. And in this TL, instead of being hanged, Guiteau could live the rest of his life in an insane asylum, where he should have been in the first place.

Eric Lipps commented on 2012-08-07 11:58:49 ~ What "radical reforms" is President Garfield supposed to have introduced? He always struck me as a fairly mainstream ninetenth-century Republican.

Jeff Provine commented on 2012-08-07 14:42:55 ~ Hope those reforms include ending widespread government corruption.