Roscoe Arbuckle a feature film. Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. "Mollie" Gordon (d. February 19, 1898) and William Goodrich Arbuckle. He weighed in excess of at birth and, as both parents had slim builds, his father believed the child was not his. Consequently, he named the baby after a politician (and notorious philanderer) whom he despised, Republican senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The birth was traumatic for Mollie and resulted in chronic health problems that contributed to her death 12 years later. When Arbuckle was nearly
Roscoe Conkling blocking all the efforts of President Hayes and Secretary Sherman until January 1879, when, a new lot of nominations having been made, they were confirmed in spite of Conkling's continued opposition. In preparation for the 1880 presidential election, Senator Conkling became the leader of the movement for the nomination of General Grant for a third term in the Presidency. He had a strong regard for Grant, and was hostile to the other two leading Republican candidates, Sherman, with whom he had come into conflict during Hayes's administration, and James G. Blaine, whose bitter political and personal enemy he had been