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. 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 dockery from New Hampshire said, quote, it is my belief to the victor belongs the spoils. The democrats should be holding most of those positions so that we might strengthen our fences for the 1940 election. Wow. The wpa director in new jersey answered his phone always use the wpa director he always answered his telephone democratic headquarters, because that is where you had to show yourself to get a job in new jersey on the wpa. Frank outy, a congressman from newark, new jersey said this. In this county there are 18,000 people on the wpa with an average of three people and the family, you have 54,000 potential democratic votes. Can anyone beat that if it is properly mobilized . This is a program to redistribute money in a political direction to benefit president roosevelt. The final program i want to mention is the aaa. Agriculture adjustment farmers were in trouble too. And so roosevelt came up with a plan to help the farmers. This plan roosevelt came up with is so wild it could only have been invented by a college professor. And it was. Professor john black, a harvard economist helps with this program, the aaa. The key component, we are going to give aid to the farmers, give aid to the farmers. They are getting low crops, low prices for their crops so what we are going to do is get more money to the farmers because their crops are not getting much money, we are going to do it by paying farmers not to produce. They will be allowed to take part of their land out of circulation, up to one fourth of their land and they will be paid not to produce on that land. That way they get more money because they are being paid not to produce, dont have to work as hard and it doesnt produce as much crop and so maybe that will raise crop prices. Turns out a lot of the farmers find fertilizer with their money and heavily fertilizing the other land and had crops that were bigger than ever but put that aside. The idea is you pay farmers not to produce. How many students lets be honest i am ready to look. How many of you would like to be paid not to do homework . This is really big. I dont want to appear selfrighteous. I would like to be paid not to grade homework. [applause] the crazy thing is one of roosevelts cabinet members were saying if we are going to pay farmers not to produce how are we going to tell others we are not going to pay them not to produce . That is something that was a big question but never extended beyond the farmers but the ideas we are paying the farmers not to produce. That is a key component of the aaa. You might say how is this going to be a program that almost doesnt make sense. The republican candidate said this is a stupid program. He was the governor of kansas. This is stupid and he got applause. A lot of people applauded. And then the farmers came up to him and said are you going to take our program always from us . Are you going to take our program away from us . His name he said no. I will just run it better than the democrats. It raises the question, doesnt it . If youre going to validate it as a reasonable program who should the farmers vote for . The guy who paid them, get them a program that pays them not to produce or guy who says i am going to run it better . We got an answer to that question historically. In 1936, the republican candidate running against Franklin Roosevelt received lets start this way. Roosevelt carried kansas. That says a lot, doesnt it . He couldnt carry his home state. He lost kansas because people like subsidies. In fact, out land and lost in the electoral college, roosevelt had 523 electoral votes, landon had eight. That was the first mrs. Roosevelt, even though unemployment was very high, that roosevelt, by redirecting the way people thought about politics, i will give you a subsidy and hope to get your vote. This kind of politics was going to be new and it was going to change the american Political Landscape forever. The final thing i want to mention that roosevelt did. You have to ask the question, if Unemployed People are getting subsidies and people dont have anything to eat, if you are in illinois you get subsidy and farmers are getting subsidy who is going to pay for this cute you taxpayers have to pay for it which means roosevelt says we are going to raise the tax rate. The top marginal rate on the highest income earners to 79 , then raised it to 90 and he then brought the tax up to 94 on all income over 200,000. 94 tax rate. You might think roosevelt is really pushing it. Roosevelt wanted more. He personally want to the tax rate of 99 , 99. 5 on all income over 100,000 and suggested that to his budget director. Just to put this in perspective if you earn 200,000, you pay a lot on your first hundred but on your second hundred thousand, imagine you earn 200,000, you get to keep 500 and you said 99,500 to washington. When roosevelt proposed this his budget director said oh my gosh and then roosevelt said why not . Why not . It was called the why not solution. The why not solution. Why not . When i raise this up okay. I will be roosevelt. I think we are to have a tax of 99 on all income over 100,000. There you go, why not. When i raise this. That did not become law. Roosevelt tried an executive order of 100 on all income over 25,000. That got repealed by congress. Then roosevelt tried another attempt, 100. 6 tax on millionaires. 100. 6 tax on millionaires. What im saying is if you are a millionaire, according to this tax bill you would pay 1,006,000. In other words if you earn 1 million, you pay 1,006,000. I thought this would be good to read the congressional record and see what people are saying about this. I coauthored this book with my wife anita. Called fdr goes to war and this was in the 1940s and we had a 106 tax proposed. I have not seen any historian who had ever done that and i thought i would like to know how the debate went on this tariff. I discovered one congressman, manny sellers said this, from new york. The government can at any time make income taxes as big as the necessities of war required us 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 lean on all of our income. Senator chandler, senator chandler from kentucky, Happy Chandler from the state of kentucky said this. Mister president , all of us know the government for everything we have. 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. I can see by the looks on some faces here, did anybody protest this . Did anybody speak against it . I combed the record and you are happy to know there are people who spoke against it. [applause] i want to honor them now. Forevermore. This is back in the days, remember massachusetts was a republican state, congress, Charles Gifford of massachusetts before i read his comment, this 106 tax bill was supposed to be in effect for three years so it was not proposed as a for everything but a 3year thing for 100. 6. However it had the potential to be forever but it was going to have a 3year 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 defendant the 100. 6, he said this. The first statement is profound, really philosophical. I want to give this to you. It may not be possible to pay more than one years taxes out of one years income. Let me read the whole thing. It may not be possible to pay more than one years taxes out of one years income, but with few exceptions person to higher bracket have assets that they can use to pay it. And that is the defense and we had the same defense in the senate, senator alan allender of louisiana said, quote, i submitted taxpayer is likely to have accumulated sufficient assets with which to make the necessary income payments. There were some. Arthur vandenberg, senator from michigan, said, quote, that was, quote, class baiting. I declined to be any part of it. If we start discriminating how will we ever stop . The bill was defeated. [applause] president roosevelt had to settle for 94 on all 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 , cut the income tax, 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, expansion, the television which had been invented, expanded. Now all of a sudden people have the capital to make these kinds of investments. Things like fast food and mcdonalds come in at this time. Things like the copy machine, Chester Carlson invented what we call the xerox machine in the 1930s but could not raise capital to invest in that because of high tax rates. Once the tax rates go down after 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 make the investments in the United StatesUnemployment Rate drops less than 4 in 1946 and also in 1947 and with that freeing of the economy we are out of the Great Depression. [applause] why not . Okay. That is myth number 2. In other words, these are important because they go together. If you believe capitalism caused the Great Depression and then you believe 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. But if you realize government got us into the Great Depression or was a huge force getting us into the Great Depression and it took a lot of free markets, not the new deal or even world war ii which was not getting us out of the Great Depression because what happens to the soldiers, will they have a free economy or not. And the freeing up of the economy they did have places to work and we were out of the Great Depression in 1940s for entrepreneurs to invest and expand and we are out of the Great Depression. It is the reverse of the myth. Government got us into the Great Depression, capitalism got us out. [applause] lets do one more missed. Myth number 3, final one. Black americans supported let me ask you this. After the civil war we are talking about voting here, were going to get the 13th amendment which will end slavery, the 14th amendment which gives civil rights to black americans and then the 15th amendment which gives the vote to blacks. From 1860 numplaps1870, then we get black americans running for office let me put it this way. After the civil war to the time of Franklin Roosevelt, 1932, 60 some years, we had 23 members of congress who were africanamerican or black, 23 members. Somebody know what party they were in . All 23 were republican. [applause] 23 out of 23 were republican, 21 members of the u. S. House and two members of 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 but because when it came to voting on it that is where the republicans were. On ending slavery, on the 13th amendment in congress, 100 of republicans supported and less than a quarter of blacks supported it. Take the 14th amendment which gives civil rights to blacks, 100 of republicans supported it, 0 of democrats supported it. It is northern and southern democrats that are involved in opposing Voting Rights, civil rights and even freedom for africanamericans so yes they are going to be republican. The ku klux klan became the arm of the Democratic Party. There were even massacres that occurred not just stopping Voting Rights but massacres with deaths because of the behavior of the ku klux klan. You might think the vote is sacred, isnt it . This is before we had the secret ballot. That happened in the 1890s. A lot of blacks were threatened by employers, they could see your ballot. If you vote republican you are fired. So there was all sorts of pressure but even with all that pressure we have 23 congressman, all republicans. The question is, you have seen how Franklin Roosevelt is a very politically shrewd person and he looks at this and not only notes not only 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 curtis, senator from kansas ran as hoovers Vice President so you have an indian i mean native american as Vice President and the first woman in congress as a republican so roosevelt is wanting to break them because republicans want limited government and lots of opportunity. Immigrants and others come over and we want to minimize barriers so they can participate in the American Economy and roosevelt is practicing identity politics. We pick groups, try to get their votes with money. Im exaggerating but it is like farmers over there, lets wheel the truck load of dollars over there and just drop. That is the farm vote. Now wield the truck over to unemployed and we will try to get those votes and try to put together a coalition to win elections. Obviously roosevelt is saying the blacks are in the Republican Party and roosevelt says maybe i can change it. Roosevelt was not in a great position to change it. The staff at the white house was segregated. That had been traditional so i dont want to put that on roosevelt. It was a traditional thing that was done in the white house but in roosevelts private residence in new york, hyde park up the hudson river, the staff there was segregated too. Roosevelt had a summer home in warm springs, georgia. The staff is segregated at the warm springs resort. He bought warm springs and he had that, roosevelt had polio and it says something positive that he didnt just sit at home, he 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 in georgia that he used that helped him be able to move his body a little bit and gave him relief but only whites were allowed to use these, the blacks were barred. If you were black and you had polio you cannot, only if you were weight. Roosevelt was not exactly a friend to black americans. His first appointee to the Supreme Court was hugo black from alabama who was a member of the ku klux klan and had his campaign for senate, not exactly Campaign Manager but chief advisor was the leader of the ku klux klan in alabama. And so that was roosevelts first appointment. Can someone with that record when the black vote . Roosevelt wanted to give it a try. What roosevelt did is looked at the one republican congressman, Oscar Depriest who oddly enough was from chicago so you had one the first 23 black members of congress were republican. They had come and gone and there was one who was in office when roosevelt became president and roosevelt said lets get somebody to run against him. So they couldnt find anybody really so they went to another republican in chicago and tried to change his registration and said they would back him. And mitch was going to run against him as a democrat. Then we have the funding of mitchell and it often went through black churches in the area and ive got to say this. He became complacent because he was such an advocate for africanamerican rights. The cafeteria in the house of representatives is segregated and he was working to integrate that. Mrs. Hoover was meeting with the wives of congressman so his wife was involved. We are integrating black into white in washington dc and Oscar Depriest was a big part of it. He thought this is going to pull me through. This is who i am. Im helping to advance liberties for black americans. He discovered on election day the pile of money that was contributing to Arthur Mitchell overpowered what he brought to the table 51 49 vote, the first democrat ever elected to the u. S. Congress in 1934, Arthur Mitchell, beat Oscar Depriest. 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 75 or more republican to about 75 democrat under Franklin Roosevelt and when he put both pieces into his new Deal Coalition he won four straight elections and died in the midst of his fourth term. My point on the myth, black africanamericans or blacks did not support the Democratic Party because the democrats earned the trust of the black community. Africanamericans, like the farmers i guess and like others who were unemployed supported the democrats because the democrats bought the votes. Democrats made monetary contributions to significantly increase their votes in those areas. That is myth number 3. Those three. I was in college decades ago, i was in college too. My professors came forth with those three arguments again and again and i found it difficult having conservative instincts to combat that because of capitalism caused the Great Depression im defending it, it caused the Great Depression, lets continue to use government. Once we turn it around, do the research and turn this around, the Great Depression was caused by government, capitalism got us out of the Great Depression and the shift of black voters was during roosevelts time because of the idea of making contributions to secure votes then we begin to understand better why the world is as it is today and the task conservatives have to try to create better laws that are more sympathetic to freedom, to change this country around so that 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. [applause] thank you. Why not freedom . The new cspan online store has booktv product. Go to cspanstore. Org to check them out, on booktv and all the cspan products. Supreme Court Justices return for the new term today with the Court Hearing cases on employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The trump administrations winding down of dac a and state funding for religious education, listen to significant Supreme Court oral arguments on our website, cspan. Org and watch on cspan. Sunday on q a the Smithsonian Institution on the history of tariffs in managing the us economy. The Supreme Court eventually ruled a tomato is a vegetable and not a fruit because of the tariff. Any botanist with hollywood tomato is a fruit. But in fact the