Good afternoon. And welcome, everyone fireworks the audience and everyone watching live online. Im dylan croup and im an intern at the Young Americans foundation. [applause] Young Americas Foundation trains conservative youth from across the country to promote conservative values. Through campus activism initiatives and conferences and campus lectures. The conservative force and called a key pillar of the conservative movement by politico. The annual in educate americas youth is undeniable. And today i also have the honor of announcing my favorite speaker, dirt dr. Burt folsom. I first heard him peek at the conference and one of the many reason its started a chapter on my campus and i became a history professor myself. As a native of lincoln, next, dr. Folsom received hip his ph. D from the university of pittsburgh. Over the four deck takes he had taught u. S. History at murray state university, northwood universe, hillsdale congress and Kennesaw State university. The Charles Cline professor of history at Hillsdale College from 2003 to 2017. He was recently appointed a distinguished fellow at Hillsdale College as well two favorite courses were history of the american presidency and history of the American Economy. He is also regular speaker and friend of Young America foundation, a special our snore for entrepreneurship and free enter might, join me in giving a warm welcome to dr. Burt folsom. [cheers and applause] thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And i have a question for you. Are you glad to be here . Yes i am delighted to be here. Im delighted to be here, and since i have this one talk here remaining, i wanted to give you some of the best wisdom i have for dealing with the historical record and the myths that you will encounter on your college campuses. Ones i encountered when i was a student, and if i can help in any way prepare you to deal with this, when you leave the conference today, i hope that will be success on my part. I wanted to do three myths. Three myths of history that most College Professors teach, and the teaching of these myths perpetuates the idea that government solves problems, capitalism creates them. Itself is really the reverse. Let me look at the historical record and talk today about some of those myths. Myth number one. The Great Depression was caused by capitalism. We know the Great Depression of the 1930s how many of you rafe heard that argument maybe in classrooms already . Wow. A lot. Right. The Great Depression, the greatest economic catastrophe in u. S. History was caused by capitalism. And you see sometimes the connections. The stock market crashes. Banks are closing. The Unemployment Rate skyrockets over 20 . And it looks like, hey, business collapsed, capitalism collapsed, it failed. Some of you see the movie its wonderful life at christmastime where you see Jimmy Stewart running a bank and is collapses under the strain of the Great Depression. Or almost collapses, and he is there to try to rescue it. What i want to do is go through this a little bit. And talk about what is the problem with that argue. Its truly the stock market did collapse, absolutely true. Its true that maybe, many banks, hundreds of them failed and its true unemployment skyrocketed. Absolutely try. I the issue is what caused that. For example, i have three causes that have really nothing to do with capitalism. Number one, the Federal Reserve, which had been manipulating Interest Rates through the 1920s, the Federal Reserve raised Interest Rates in 1929. The raising of those Interest Rates made money harder to borrow and, therefore, made it harder for Business People to get the capital they needed to invest and expand. Milton freedman won the nobel prize for a book that he coauthored on the Federal Reserve, and the American Economy, that part of that become included the 1930s, and his argue. Is this Federal Reserve manipulating the the Interest Rates is a chief cause of the Great Depression. Thats point number one. Opinion number two, the protective tariff, taafes were raise tariffs were raise held in the 1930s. Raised to record highs. The smoot hawley tariff was the highest tariff in u. S. History. I was enacted during president hoof hoovers presidency when the Great Depression began. Now, youre think, gee, tariff . Thats a tax on imports. A tariff . Is helping to cause a Great Depression . That sounds like it may not quite make sense, but it does if you think of it this way. Tariffs have to do with trade. When you tax imports and you tax them highly, you restrict trade. When you restrict trade, you slow down an economy. In particular, the restrictions we had in the smooted hawley tariff where we had high taafe on 3,000 items and raid tariffs sharply on several of them, we had situation for example, we had switzerland, major watches, watches were the best watches in the world, and they sold if we would translate this to dollars today think sold for about 30 apiece. The swiss watches were the best in the world, kept perfect time and sold for 30 apiece. American made watches from New England States like rhode island, were not as good and they cost 45. In other words, they cast more than the swiss watch, the american watches this back in the days when we had to wind our watches. Every morning we would wind our watch, and then it would keep time for that day, and then we would wind it again the next day. The americanmade watches had problem. Youd wiped it and one would run for an hour in 58 minutes, which is to say it was off sometimes a couple of minutes an hour. But thats okay because remember you wind it the next day and just reset it and get it back. Now, would you rather do that with a 45 american watch or would you rather have the a swiss watch for 30 you didnt have to do that with . Well, most americans said, i want the swiss watch. Which is find because switzerland would buy our watches would sell us their watches and they would buy our products, typewriters, say, or automobiles, the United States had the cheapest cars in the world and the best cars so we while switzerland our cars and they would sell us watches. When we put a huge tariff on swiss watches because the watch, making congressional districts wanted to price swiss watches out of the market so theirs would sell instead. To do this they had to pass a tariff that virtually doubled the price of swiss watches, so its rough lay 30 tariff on 3. You had to pay 30 for the swiss watch and 30 to the Customs Service for the tariff so its a now become a 60 watch and a lot of american watchmakers thought, good, if ours are 45 and the swiss watch is 60, maybe more people with buy our watches. Even though they dont tell time very well. Well, you might say, well, yeah, maybe, and i mean at least we gain few watch sales but look at is this way weapon lose car sales. Because switzerland absolutely cut us off in our exports. Now, thing about this. Multiplied by country after country put a high tariff on british blank kits, on french wine, a tariff on spanish olives. So we have tariffs on all of these items, and then all of those countries, european and iowa, refuse to buy our products. So, now american cars, which sold over 5 million in 1929, are down to a million and a half by 1932, and michigan, detroit, is in a Great Depression. We lost those sales and that became part of the problem in the auto industry. So what im saying is, that tariff, the smoot haley everybody was a tariff was a key cause in the great decision, and the third and final is that president hoover responded he was you say hoover was a republican. He absolutely was. He was a member of guess youd say the liberal wing of the Republican Party and his presidency was indeed disaster. But he wanted to use government whenever he could and thought it would be good, and he raised taxes because he thought this would be good to gather more money for the government abuse were losing money because the depression is creating lower revenues, lower income, and, therefore, lower revenue coming to the United States so he thought, a tax rate would be good. The tax rate in 19 well, in 29 when hoover became president was 25 maximum. I haven essay the book the myth of the robber barons on andrew melon, which you have, which talks about the tax rate, which actually was lowering the tax rate in the 1920s to get it down 25 . And when we did that we had tremendous inventions like talking movies, radio, heres one that guess for us summer day in d. C. Air conditioning. Im enjoying it right now. Air conditioning. Those inventions in some cases that care conditioning was invented be before the 20s but was not adopted until the 20s when we got the tax rate down and then the entrepreneurs like Willis Carrier had the insend tonight invest and was very prosperous. Now the tax rate goes from 25 which is a maximum rate, on top of incomes up to 63 . That means thats wealthy people at some point are paying more than half of their income to the government. If youre going to pay more than half your income to the government, youre going to be very careful but what you invest in and maybe you shouldnt be investing in much aft all. In other words, it attached down heavily on entrepreneurship, on investment, right when we need investment to create jobs to replace the ones being lost by the Federal Reserve raising its Interest Rates and by the smoot hawley tariff. What im saying here is we have three things. The Federal Reserve raising Interest Rates, the high tariff, and raising taxes. Think about that. Is that capitalism or is that government . You have government creating the Great Depression. Those changes are changes that made it hard, almost impossible, for capitalists to operate. Free enterprise thinkers were at a standstill because of the high taxes, because the tariffs affected imports so much, and because of the Federal Reserve raising Interest Rates. So what we have here, i would suggest, is the Great Depression was caused not by capitalism, the Great Depression was caused by government. Capitalism is going to be ultimately part of the solution, not part of the problem. So thats myth number one. Myth number two is connected. Myth number two is this. Franklin roosevelt because hoover lost the election of 1932 to Franklin Roosevelt. And so the republican is out, the democrat is in, roosevelt, and his program was called the new deal. Going to have a set of programs which he is going to use to try to come boot the Great Depression. So myth number two, fdr, or Franklin Roosevelt, with his new deal, used government effectively to help get the United States out of the Great Depression. Franklin roosevelt with his new deal used government effectively to help get the United States out of the Great Depression. How many of you have had that taught to you in school . Thats exactly what i had taught to me. That is the prominent teaching. Now, theres sometimes some variations. Some professors will say, well, the new deal may not have completely gotten us out but help. A movement in the right direction and then other things came later to help more. Now, the new deal is always praised. A step in the right direction, and some will say it was really the whole way out of the Great Depression. Or some part of the Great Depression. Capitalism failed. Government, through new deal programs, is ready to come to the rescue. Franklin roosevelts new deal. When i was writing my book an important subject i wrote the book new deal or raw deal and in writing that book, i spent a lot of time, about ten years writing it. The longest time id ever spent writing a book, and the reason i did so is bass i wanted to get this right. Went and asked my fellow history professors, and students, too, what do you think was Franklin Roosevelts best policy maneuver . His best program. I would then sometimes say, Franklin Roosevelt failed and i would cite program after program that was a failure or had horrible unintended consequences. And i would say, what do you think of that . And they frequently would say, well, yeah, maybe, but, he tide this, which was good. And it often came back to one particular program, the program under the name of the emergency relief and construction act. It was the program that gave food or money immediately to cities and states to feed starving people because we had almost 25 unemployment. I think that theres some logic in that argue. If you take it just that far. If you have a situation where you have 25 percent of the people unemployed, and naturally theyre going to run out of money at some point, unless their savings is huge, and most people didnt have that. Then theyre going to be hungry, cant feed their families, and so even if other parts of roosevelts program are not so good, the fact that he was willing to feed people and use that money is a good thing and it shows the important of a Good Government program. What i want you to do though, is look at this. I explored this emergency relief act in the First Program to give its really the First FederalWelfare Program in u. S. History. Called it relief back in the 1930s. We often call it welfare today but the first one. Heres an interesting point. Itself was 300 million, which is a lot if you put it in todays terms of many, many billions of dollars. It was a large program. And the way it was distributed you might find interesting. The state of illinois, which was now, we have some illinois students. Were not booing them. These are the politicians in the state of illinois. Those politicians in the state of illinois were very clever and very crafty. They maneuvered the situation so their state received almost 20 of all the money. Out of that 300 million, illinois got close to over 55 million. Theyve got more money in illinois than new york, california, and texas put together. They did it by pleading need but they did it more by pleading, we are good with franklin roof getting votes roost for getting offends for mitchell. Roosevelt could count on illinois delivering votes to him in emergency situations so they were politically important. Illinois was a swing state that roosevelt wanted to carry and thus illinois ended up the number one state receiving this relief money. Pennsylvania is number two. Now, i know those are large states but not the largest states and youll fine it interesting to know that states that tended to be republican any 1930s didnt do so well. Massachusetts, its hard to believe that massachusetts was a republican state at one time but it was. In the 1930s, massachusetts and connecticut were both republican states. Massachusetts and connecticut received a grandtotal of zero money. So understood, 300 million is being spent for relief, and massachusetts, boston, all that, and connecticut get zero. And they werent the only states to get zero. The bottom five states all got zero, and they tended to vote republican. And the top five states got over half the money. So you have 300 million. The top five states get over half the money. The bottom five states get zero. Now, what this is in effect is not a Welfare Program or relief practice its at redistribution program. We are redistributing wealth from republican states or states that are not in some way serviceable to Franklin Roosevelt, who states that are very influential and key in Franklin Roosevelts economic or political career. Hearry hop hari hopkins was a leader on the relief act, one the the fdrs people distribute the money and were careful to distribute the money to the people they thought were the politically most worthy of receiving i it. Boston is caught in a bind. As part of my research in the book i was trying to deal with how massachusetts was dealing with this. Massachusetts constantly worked to raise money because now massachusetts has to feed its own unemployed, plus it has to send taxes to washington to feed illinois. Listen to this. In massachusetts, a statewide unemployment drive raid over 3 million. That in todays money would be more like 50 million. The boston civic symphony gave concerts to benefit the jobless. Boston college and holy cross played an ann exhibition Football Game for charity. Benefit wrestling match at boston guard s supplies 5,000 for local need. Closer to 100,000 today. City officials helped the mayor raise a remarkable 2. 5 million as gifts from city employees. Heres the one i like the best. Teachers, donated 2 of their salaries. Lets hear it for the teachers. [applause] i cant take any credit. I wasnt one those of teachers but teacher did donate 2 of their salaries to help the boom historian charles trout, who has studied bostons amazing efforts to meet local needs, wrote, quote, no major city assisted so high a percentage of its jobless as boston did in the 1930s. Boston had to because, remember, the money is being redistributed for massachusetts to illinois. So boston has to take care of its own poor people, plus it has to send money to washington so that it can be given to illinois. Once you see the Relief Program in this way, you realize, my gosh, this wasnt really so much helping needy people, although i guess if you were in age you may have been helped but this is a redistribution taking it away from massachusetts, which is usual lay republican state, and giving it to illinois, which is a swing state. So thats a key component in the one that is most vigorously defended as part of Franklin Roosevelts new deal. It was greatly expanded enough roosevelt. Technically the relief and construction agent was passed late in hoovers administration but very late during the caminiti pain of 32 but was run and expanded under roosevelt. The program. Thats best known in the new deal is the wpa. Works progress administration. To give jobs roadbuilding. Other things besides roadbuilding but a lot of roads being built by the wpa. The idea is theyre unemployed. Now have them build roads, puts them to work and you get road built and thats a good program, too. Well, instudying the wpa we find that theres kind of familiar picture here. Those people does this sound familiar like youre listening to a broken record . Those people from democrat states who have influence were able to get a lot of wpa funds. Those people who are not from influential states did not get very much at all. I have some quotations to see that iing to maybe would make the point in the book. Vg copeland, democratic county chairman of indiana complained his opinion this what i think will help is to change the wpa management from top to bottom. Put men in there who are in favor of using these democratic projects to make votes for the Democratic Party. That doesnt leave a lot to the imagination, does it . James dough hurtty from new mexico said it his permanent belief that to to the victors belongs the spoils. The democratics shouldbe holding most of the wpa positions so we might strengthen our fences for the 1940 election. Wow. The wpa director in new jersey, answered his phone always the wpa director, always answered his telephone democratic headquarters, because that is where you had to show yourself important to be able to get a job in new jersey on the wpa. Frank tally, a congressman from new york, new jersey, said this in this county there are 18,000 people on the wpa. With an average of three people in a family you have 54,000 potential democratic votes. Can anyone beat that if it is probably mobilized . So what you have to think, again, program to redistribute money in a political direction to benefit president roosevelt. The final program i want to mention is the agricultural adjust act because farmer thursday trouble, too. And so roosevelt came up with a plan to help the farmers. This plan that roosevelt came up with is so wild, it could only have been invented by a college professor. It was. Professor john black, the harvard economist, helped with this program, the aaa. The key component aid to the farmers, by theyre not getting dish theyre getting low prices for their crops. So what were going to do is get more money to the farmers because their crops are not getting much money. Were going to do it by paying farmersed not to produce. Then well be allowed to take part of the land out of circulation, up to a fourth of their land and they will be paid not to produce on that land. That way they get more money because theyre being paid not to produce, dont have to work as hard, and it doesnt produce as much crop, and so maybe that will raise price crop prices. Its turns out a lot of the farmers were buying fertilize irwith their money and then heavily fertilizing the other land and had boom crops that were bigger than ever. Anyway, but that aside. This idea is you pay farmers not produce. How many students now, lets be honest, students. I have my glasses on. How many of you would like to be paid not to do homework . This is really big. Now, i dont want to appear selfrighteous. Would like to be paid not to grade homework. [applause] the funny, the crazy thing is one of roosevelts cabinet members, was saying, if were going to pay farmers not to produce, how are we going to tell others were not going to pay them not produce . And that is something that was a big question but never extend beyond the farmer but the idea is were paying the farmers not to produce. Thats a key component of the aaa, and you might say how is this going to be a program thats going to just almost doesnt make sense. The republican candidate who first ran against roosevelt said, this is a stupid program, paying people not to produce. The governor of kansas. This is stupid. And then he got applause. A lot of people applauding. And then the farmers came up to him and said are you going to take our program away from us . Are you going to take our program away from us . And he kind of a rhino here. His eh was alf landsen of kansas and he said, but, but, but, no, ill just run it better than the democrats. Well, raises the question, if youre going validate it then as a reasonable program, who should the farmers vote for, the guy who paid them gave them a program that pays them not produce, or a guy who says, im going to written better . We got an answer to that question historically. In 1936, governor landen was the republican candidate rung against Franklin Roosevelt and he received well, lets start this way. Roosevelt carried kansas. That says a lot, doesnt it. Couldnt carry his own home state. He lost kansas because people like subsidies. In fact, alf landen lost in the electoral college. Roosevelt had 523 electoral votes, and landen had eight. And that was the first message that roosevelt, even though unemployment was still very high, that roosevelt, by redirecting the way that people thought about politics, ill give you subsidy. I hope to get your vote. This kind of politics was going to be new and it was going change the american Political Landscape forever. The final thing i want to mention that roosevelt did because, see, you have to ask the question. If Unemployed People are getting subsidies, people who dont have anything to eat are getting at least some of them, if youre in illinois, maybe you get a subsidy, and if farmers are getting subsidies who is going to pay for all this . Taxpayers have to pay for it, which means roosevelt says we are going raise the tax rate. Roosevelt raised the top marginal rate on the highest income earners to 79 , then raised it to 90 . And he then brought it ultimately brought the tax up to 94 on all income over 200,000. 94 tax rate. Now, you might think, boy, room. Is pushing it. Roosevelt was wanted more help personally wanted a tax rate of 99 , 99 359 , on all income over 100,000 and suggested that to his budget director. That means just to put this in perspective, if you earn 200,000, you pay lot on your first hundred dread but onor second hundred thousand, you pay you get to keep 500 and you send 99,500 to washington. When roosevelt proposed this, his budget director said, oh, my bosh, and then roosevelt said, why not . Why not . And it was sometimes called the why not solution. The why not solution. Why not . When i raised this up i want you to okay. Ill be roosevelt. I think we august to have a tax of 99 on all income over 100,000. Why not . There you go, why not. Well, that did not become law. Roosevelt tried an executive order of 100 on all income over 25,000. Well, that got repealed congress. Then roosevelt tried another attempt, a 100. 6 tax on millionaires. 100. 6 tax on millionaires. What im saying is, i if youre a millionaire, according to this tax bill, you would pay 1,006,000. If you earn a Million Dollars you may 1,006,000. Now, i thought this would be good to read the congressional record and see what people are saying about this. I wrote coauthored this book we my wife, aneat dark called fdr goes to war this was in the 1940s. And we had a 100. 6 tax proposed and i thought lets see does that strike you i had not seen any historian who had ever done that and i thought i would like to know how the debate went on this tax. I discovered one congressman, manny sellers, said this, from new york the government at any time make income taxes as thumping big as the necessities of war require, thus if any plan does not raise enough money, taxes can at any time be increased. The government always has a moral if not an actual lien on all of our income. Wow. Senator chandler, from kentucky Happy Chandler from the state of kentucky. He said this mr. President , all of us owe the government, we owe it for everything we have. And that is the basis of obligation and the government can take everything we have if the government needs it. The government can assert its right to have all the taxes it needs for any purpose, either now or at any time in the future. In other words, there is support for this tax bill. Now, i can see by the looks only some faces here, did anybody protest this . Did anybody speak against this . I comb the record and youll be happy to know there war people who spoke against it. [cheers and applause] i want to honor them now. Forever more. One of them again, this is back the days, remember, massachusetts was a republican state. Congressman Charles Gifford of massachusetts before i read his comment, this 100. 6 tax bill was supposed to be in effect for three years so not initially proposed as forever thing but a threeyear thing for 100. 6. However, it had the potential to be forever but it would have a threeyear trial. Charles gifford stated the problem this way quote, for three long years, he has to pay more than he receives. How does he pay his other taxes . How does he meet his Living Expenses . I was glad to see somebody ask that. There was a response congressman jerry cooper from tennessee. Defended the 100. 6. He said this. In the first statement is profound, really philosophical. It may not be possible to pay more than one years taxes another of one years income. Wow. Woo. Let me read the whole thing. Itself may not be possible to pay more more than one years taxes out of one years income, but with few exceptions, persons in the higher brackets have assets they can use to pay it. And that is the defense. And we had the same defense in the senate. Senator allen el of louisiana said i suspect the taxpayers i likely to have acouple lited sufficient assets with which to make the necessary income payments. There were some i have to give Arthur Vandenberg credit here etch the said, quote, that bill is, quote, class baiting. I decline to be any part of it. If we just start discriminating, how will we ever stop . The bill was defeated. [cheers and applause] profit roosevelt had to settle for 94 on income over 200,000. You might say, what did get us out of the depression . We cut taxes after world war ii and we cut the Corporate Tax from 90 to 39 . We cut the income tax we promised more tax cuts later, roosevelt died, and all of a sudden the republicans had a resurgence, the conservative democrats plus republicans took control of congress in 1946, and they freed up the economy and all of a sudden we get incredible inventions, we get expansion of the television, which had been invented, expanded. Now all of a sudden people had the capital to make these kinds of investments. Things like fastfood and mcdonalds comes in at this time. Things leak the copy machine. Chester karlson invented what we would call xerox or the xerox machine in the 1930s, but he could not raise capital to invest in that because of the high tax rates. Once the tax rates go down in the 19 of world war ii he is able to invest. After world war ii with the cutting of the tax rates and the freeing up of our economy, the capitalists come back into the lineup and begin to make the investments and the United StatesUnemployment Rate drops to less than 4 in 1946, and also in 1947 and with that freeing of the economy, at last we are out of the Great Depression. [applause] why not . Okay. Thatsing my number two. So, in other words these are important because they good togetherif you believe capitalism cause evidence the Great Depression, and then you believe that government got us out of the Great Depression, that biases any discussion youre going to be in on why shouldnt we use Free Enterprise in our economy. Put if you realize that government really got us into the Great Depression or at least was a huge force getting us into the Great Depression, and that it took a lot of free markets, north the new deal or even world war ii, which was not a getting us out of the Great Depression because what happens to the soldiers when they come back home . Going to have a free economy or not . Well, because of the tax rate cuts in the 1940s, and the freeing up of the economy, they did have places to work and we were out of the Great Depression in the 1940s and the incentives were properly put in place for entrepreneurs to invest to invent, and to expand and were out of the Great Depression. Its really the reverse of the myth. Government got abuse the Great Depression, capitalism got us out. [applause] lets do one more myth. Myth number three. The final one. Blacks black americans deported let me ask you this. After the civil war, were talking about voting here were going to get the 13th 13th amendment which will end slavery. The 14th amendment which gives civil rights to black americans. And then you have the 15th 15th amendment which give this vote to blacks. From, say, 1860s, 1870 when then get black americans running for office, what from after the civil war to at the time of Franklin Roosevelt, 193260some years, we had 23 members of congress who were africanamerican or black, 23 members. Somebody know what party they were in . Republican. They all 23 were republicans. [applause] 23 out of 23 were run. 21 members therefore the u. S. House and two members the senate over that 65 or so year period, and every one was a republican. In part because not only because republican Abraham Lincoln was instrumental in securing their freedom and when it came to voting on it thatsy the republicans were. Frame, on ending slavery, the 13th amendment in congress, 100 of republicans supported it, and less than a quarter of the whacked supported it. You take the 14th amendment. Which gives civil rights to blacks. 100 of republicans supported it. Zero percent of democrats supported it. Senator what im say, its northern and southern democrats here that are involved in opposing Voting Rights, civil rights, and even freedom for africanamericans so yes, theyre going to be republicans. The Klu Klux Klan became the arm of the Democratic Party and there were even massacres that occurred. Not just stopping Voting Rights but massacres that occurred with deaths because of the behavior of the Klu Klux Klan, and you might think the vote is secret, isnt it . This is before we had the secret ballot. That really happens more in the 1890s. And a lot of blacks were threatened by employers sometimes if you you had to they could see your ballot itch youve vote republican youre fired. So there was all sorts of pressure. Even with all that pressure, we have 23 congressmen, all republicans. Now, the question is, you have seen how Franklin Roosevelt is a very politically shrewd person and he looks at this and not only not only are every black republican but the first woman to be elected to congress, republican. The first hispanic in the u. S. Senate, republican. When roosevelt beat hoover, hoovers Vice President was an indian. Charles kurtis. Senator from kansas, ran then as hoovers volunteer. I mean a native american as a Vice President , and you had the first woman in congress is a republican and roosevelts wanting to break that because republicans tend to say we want limited government, and therefore we want lots of opportunity and so migrants and others come over and we want to minimize barriers so theying can participate in the American Economy and benefit from the freedom that its so special with the United States. Roost is practicing identify politics where we pick groups, try to get their votes with movement im exaggeration but there are farmers over there, lets wheel the truckload of dollars therefor and drop it. Okay, now thats the farm vote now. Wheel the truck over to unemployed dump it and put together a coalition to win elected. Obviously roosevelt is sitting there saying, well the blacks are in the Republican Party and roosevelt says, yeah, but maybe i can change it. Maybe i can change it. Roosevelt was not in a great position to change it. The staff at the white house was segregated. That has been traditional so i dont want to put that on roosevelt. That was a traditional thing done in the white house. However, in roosevelts private residence in new york, which is called hyde park, up the hudson river, the staff there was segregated, too. Roosevelt had a summer home in warm springs, georgia. The staff was segregated at the warm springs resort. He bought warm springs and he had that because as many of you know he had polio it and says something positive about him, he didnt just sit at home. The tried to do something with his life and ultimately became president. But he did have polio and it was incapacitating, and he had some springs there in georgia that he used that made that helped him be able to move his body a little bit and gave him relief. However, only whites were allowed to use the springs. This blacks were barred. If youre a black and you had polio you could not come in only if youre white. So roosevelt was not exactly a friend to black americans. In fact his first appointee to the Supreme Court was hugo black, from alabama, a member of the Klu Klux Klan, and who had his campaign for senate not exactly Campaign Manager but chief adviser was the leader of the Klu Klux Klan in alabama. And so that was roosevelts first appointment. So the question is, can someone with that record win the black vote . Roosevelt wanted to give it a try. What roosevelt did is he looked at the one republican congressman, oscar dupries who oddly enough what from shuck. So you had one i said the first 23 black members of congress were republicans. They all had come and gone and theres juan in office when roosevelt became president and that as sos tar dupries in chicago. And roosevelt got someone to run again dupries and they couldnt find any they went to another republican in chicago and got him to change his registration and said theyd back him, and his name was Arthur Mitchell and Arthur Mitchell was going to run against due pries as a democrat. Then we have the funding of mitchell. And it often went through black churches in the area of due pries district and i have to say this, due dupries was such an advocate for africanamerican rights. The cafeteria in the house of representatives, segregated and he was working to integrate that. Mrs. Hoover was meeting with the wives of congressmen and so his wife was involved. Integrating blacks into life in washington, dc, and oscar dupries, being the only black congressman was part of it. The thought this will pull me through. This who is i am. Integrationist, helping to advance lischs for black americans and discovered on election day that the pile of money that was contributed to Arthur Mitchell overpowered what he brought the table in a 51 to 49 vote, the first democrat ever elected to the u. S. Congress in 1934, Arthur Mitchell, beat oscar dupries. In 1936 there was yet more federal aid to africanamerican areas. Franklin roosevelt was the first democrat to win a majority of the black vote. It shifted from about 75 or more republican to about 75 democrat under Franklin Roosevelt, and when he put those pieces into his new deal coalition, he won four straight elections and died in the midst of his fourth term but my point on on the myth is, black africanamericans, or blacks, did not support the Democratic Party because the democrats earned the trust of the black community. Africanamericans liked the farmers, i guess, i and like others who were unemployed, supported the democrats because the democrats bought the votes. That may be hard for democratics made monetary contributions that significantly increased the votes in those areas. Thats myth number three. Those three i was in college, decades ago but i was in college, too, my professors caming for with those three arguments, again and again and again, and i found it difficult, having conservative instincts to combat that because if capitalism caused the Great Depression and im defending it, then they say but it caused the Great Depression, lets continue use government. Once we turn this around and do the research, turn this around, that the Great Depression was caused by government, that capitalism helped get out of the Great Depression and the shift of black voters war during roosevelts time because of the idea of making contributions to secure votes, then we began to understand better why the world is as it is today, and the task that conservatives have to try to create better laws that are more sympathetic to freedom, to change this country around so we have Less Government and more people having the opportunity to rise without an oppressive government taxing them, regulating them and inhibiting their lives. Thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you. Why not freedom . This week youre watching booktv, so you can see what programs are available every weekend. Watch top nonfiction authors and books along with coverage of events, fairs and festivals, and interviews on policy, technology and more. Plus, our signature programs in depth and after words. Enjoy book tv this week, and every weekend, on cspan2 2. Saturday night on booktv. At 11 00 p. M. Eastern. If we dont tell our own stories, others will tell them for us. And they wont have the same care and concern that we do. This is an important thing for all of us. Im a privacy advocate. And it was very hard actually harder to tell this story to tell my story, than it was to come forward and really actually risk any freedom and potentially my life to tell the world about everything that was going on. Former National SecurityAgency ContractorEdward Snowden talks about exposing the u. S. Governments Mass Surveillance Program and going into exile in this book prominent record, then on sunday at noon eastern, department in depth with journal Jim Naomi Kline giant the hottest summer on record. We have never had so little arctic sea ice. We are losing huge swaths of the amazon. We have lost much of the grate barrier reef. These are the major features of or planet. The arctic, the amazon, the Great Barrier reef and we are, breaking them. She talked about books which include on fire, the burning case for a green new deal. No logo, and the shock doctrine. Join in the conversation like with your phone calls, tweets and facebook messages. And at 9 00 eastern on after words in this latest book, deciphering the. Washington times National Security column nist talks about chinas effort to become a Global Military and economic super power. He is interviewed by the former undersecretary of state for global affairs. Everyone is looking at the chinese economic threat and as you mentioned, the white house was very successful in highlighting this threat. They issued a report with the stunning title called chinas economic aggression and there was huge policy fight with the bureaucrats saying, oh, we cant say economic aggression, but when you read the report you understand