Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books By David McCullough 20240713

The attempted assassination why would the government why would any had a pension . But no penchant for president in fact he had very little money and had to borrow some money. Quite secretly and then for the move back home. This is not well known he did have money but he needed some cash to cover all of the experiment on dash expenses. And when he got home in order to provide himself some income he took the writing of his autobiography in memoirs that no other president had ever done except for hoover but his time in office was much more brief him that covered the more tumultuous history so that was a major ambitious task and then he built his library for there was a Previous Library but it was established after roosevelt died in office so truman was the first over the president ial library and then he began something new so then to imply or emphasize in the book is that truman was in part a creative public figure he had been a builder all of his life he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house to a great flurry of criticism. And he entirely rebuilt the white house what we have today is the house that harry built except to the outer shell the entire interior is a reconstruction of the interior. He had every detail and he loved creating. And in a larger way and is marked by such creative and innovative acts as the Marshall Plan and truman doctrine. And then to be a builder in this chapter and then to welcome guests and take people around was his life. Did you ever meet them . No i saw him once on my first job in new york. I gotta job at Sports Illustrated a new magazine i was coming home from work one night. Is stopping at the old st. George hotel. There was a small crowd waiting for governor hammond stepped out i had never seen the governor before so i was excited about that then out stepped president truman , former president truman. And i was just astonished. And i remember thinking oh my god he is in color because we only had black and White Television and newspapers. So the fact he had high color radiated good health that made him seem vital. And did not seem like a little man like he was 6foot 8 inches. I never spoke to him or met him i also thought wouldnt that be interesting if we could go back in time to reach out and touch them on the shoulder and say mr. President , i will write your biography some day. What would he think about this . I am sure there is some of that he would not like because this is after an honest attempt to see the complete man for all of his flaws. And then to understood him better. And to be much more complicated and keenly intelligent and thoughtful and considerate man and the stereotype that is James Whitmore he just as in a down home will rogers all the people i have interviewed him that knew him and worked with him in the white house, they all say please understand this man was much more than met the eye. How many did you do . 126 and that was across the Broad Spectrum and those that hardly knew him at all but to see him come and go and also some of whom are so important. Who did you spend the most time with . I would guess in tota total, either Margaret Truman or george who was on the white house staff. And some of the secret Service People because they were with him all the time. Are secret Service Allowed to talk after the fact . Apparently so. And they are wonderful because they saw him in all conditions, offstage, and under enormous pressure. Even with the attempted assassination to secret service men who are still here in washington walked me through the whole event both inside and outside blair house where it took place. Spent the better part of one saturday doing that. Im sure thats never been done before so my account of that is based on material that can only be had through living people. And their devotion to harry truman is a compelling thing to listen to. I did not find a Single Person who knew him well he wanted to say that terrible backstage temper and the closer people were they were devoted to him and to find people that they didnt like and had some skeletons to pull out of the closet. I started ten years ago 1982. I was looking for a subject i had to go around the barn and i quit that book and i found out i dislike him so he was a repugnant human being. And he didnt really have a story at the time that interested me. He was successful, he never had any adventures or went very far. Tremendously one tremendously important painter. But i found his treatment of his family, attitude toward wome women, nobody wanted to spend five years with as a roommate so to speak. My editor at Simon Schuster suggested i think about doing Franklin Roosevelt because at that time there was not a good one volume biography. Just on impulse i said no. If im doing 20th century president would it be roosevelt it would be truman. He said why not harry truman . So i looked into it. There wasnt a good biography of your he truman. A complete life and times this last chapter that you talk about the his part of life has never been written before comprising 20 years of his life. So there was elements collection of letters and diaries he pulled himself out on paper all his life when im sure well never have another president we will have to write letters or keep diaries and he did both and that he would be a figure in history. And when his wife was back and independents looking after her mother truman wrote to her 37 times. Not just a simple how are you the weather is turning cooler but real letters. And strong handwriting but to be very legible theres never a problem reading his handwriting. But at some point he and his wife call their daughter margaret every night . Yes. They are very close. The same people as secret Service Agents and how they said the closest family they have ever known in the white house. Although they dont want to be quoted in person but they all say truman is their favorite president. And to walk out to the connection one kitchen to thank the chef for the cook for the dinner that night. And then to see if that they were stealing food. Truman knew everybody by name. This wasnt a politicians device and the job are in the white house. And never gave anyone hell. And then also how considerate he was. John adams born 1735 and live through 1826 and live longer than any president in our history. He has been commonly taught of as a rich boston blueblood that because of a scholarship to harvard and lets please today remember john adams the second president of the United States to sign legislation to create a library of congress. And to remember john adams is altogether particularly appropriate in this occasion. He was a man of genuine brilliance and also a great of great heart and humor and devoted to his country. And devoted to his wife and family. And one of the bravest patriots in history. Sometimes temperamental or overly concerned to his position or place and to his disadvantage never considering popularity his mistress. He never courted anybody. His courage was the courage of his convictions one of the most important principle behavior and the only founding father who ever owned a slave as a matter of principle. And historically the thing to do. Abigail and john adams. Abigail more ardently than her husband. The waterfall that suffering is gods punishment. This synergy on San Andreas Fault that runs through the story and does to me people not seem to understand well before the declaration of independence. John dickinson that was in many ways launching into a storm made of paper. And then that we succeeded. And to fight for and to succeed in gaining our independence. John adams would have not set free he was a independent and free. And new englanders by nature and cultural tradition are fiercely independent people. So was religion. So with that time and moment in history and those present at one protagonists we believe in the separation of church and state that did not mean the separation of church and statesman. If we really want to understand understand the part religion played. They also had longdistance communications that took a lot of time and is almost beyond our reckoning to get a letter back with philadelphia and boston and it took at least two weeks. And then to be separated cumulatively ten years and that separation was created by the Atlantic Ocean took upwards between three and six months. And what does that mean cracks it meant both and personal life and diplomatic or official life that one had to be more responsible than we understand today for ones own decisions. Went to balance accounts because that was the only means of subsistence to educate children whether to give smallpox shots come and they had to make those decisions themselves. She couldnt ask what should i do . That was a part of life. That assumption of responsibility to ones self. When he was serving in france and in netherlands and englan england, he had to make tremendous decisions on his own. Of course at the time but also his own career but that was because it was necessary. We think of communication and transportation is two different things. Back then it was the same thing. And then to live in a different time. And a very interesting time. And not only what they wrote. Neither john nor Abigail Adams was capable to write a long sentence or a short letter they wrote over 1000 letters to each other that survived. All in the Massachusetts Historical Society at all on rag paper and as a consequence they are as good as a day they are written you can hold them in your own hand about the same distance from your eyes as they did. And something very important it isnt as to see it on microfilm or reproduced in a book. The mortality, the vulnerability of those people comes through in the bravery. Think of that woman at 11 00 oclock at night by herself doing all she did to write those letters. And inserting into her letter a wonderful quotation from one of her favorite poets or shakespeare. And always getting it a little bit wrong. [laughter] which shows she did not look it up. She wasnt taking a book down off the shelf this will make me look great. And equally important and rewarding experience and i did a small piece in the Washington Post this summer to go back and read all those that were required to read those courses with samuel richardson. And then to be reminded how terrific they were. And to talk about five on progress and limit with the benefits of progress. Like when we go to the dentist. [laughter] think of john adams everyone had been pulled. And that certain insanity like for the 18th century and i will tell you Something Else that should make a shape up. The Literacy Rate was higher in their time than it is today. What a lot of work still has to be done about that. And that affected their lives with that notion of truth and heroism how you write a letter. Dont try to write literature when you write a letter. And then you read those letters and then you hear them talk. One of the things ive done my books and particularly in this book and then to let them talk as much as possible. And the figures of speech in the cadence and that personality and style. Abigail was hugely influenced by richardson especially the great novel carissa which was the most popular novel of the 1h century and she wrote an interesting letter to her knees saying she wanted to read clarissa write your letters like they are in the novel. Is just letters people writing letters back and forth to each other. So thats how hers are written. Those were written a large part because they were separated for so many years and because of the separation and as a consequence. Even were not separated from her husband she would write to her sister for example. She needed to put her thoughts out on paper and this is a very important point. And then you sit down and you start to write something and that you have a thought you never would have had if you hadnt forced yourself. To focus the brain in a different way. We have some video of your home and your writing shed. This is personal. It is and the shed it is headquarters. And the village in the center of the island of Marthas Vineyard as part 18th century part 19th century. And then to look back over the acre that we own like a nice reach back to a neighboring farm since the island was first settled. In the fact one any fact that is my walk to work right there. And then there is a hundred dollars in their and the typewriter every book i have ever written on that typewriter. And it has 750,000 miles and runs perfectly. Everything in this room . Everything. We lived in charlottesville for a year. And at the university of virginia but essentially all of it was written here in the room. I work all day every day. Im not writing all day i am reading or correcting the day before and going over notes. No music. There is a nice view but i have my back to it so im not tempted. And its far enough from the house i can see general washington and his soldiers marching around. David they were a little behind. I work out there because when the children were young, i didnt want them to have to be walking around. There was a call made to really look at what is in front of me as i worked. That was the earliest photograph of the capital. A love that photograph. I love them all. We can talk about this later. This is the great line from adams letter to abigail about the promise and the rise of the role. In his indicated there into the mantelpiece at the white house. This map of boston, which figures very importantly this book and i am working on now. And its a contemporary map in the adams book. I take everything that this wonderful crayon drawing by a french artist of john adams pretty think is one of the best most rep. Of him ever done. I love it drawing, i love painting. I painted all myself. And since it is the only way we can see those is in the drawings, and paintings of the utmost importance. In trying to reach the human being that one is writing about. Those letters of George Washington which again, aspired what i am working on today. Doug of the property, when we were building this little building right work. Host hello he lived in that house there. David i bought it in 1965 and pay less for it than you would buy a car for it today. We slowly began to restore it and fix it up. We lived there for a time at cornell. I was later in residence in new mexico for a while. In the aggregate of half of the year at least. And in missouri when i was working on the german work. This is the other work area. This is where all of our paraphernalia of the communications are located. The fax machine, the copy machine, the computer, and so forth. Thats a little signed this is no cell phones permitted in this room which i click from a hotel in london. I love that little sign. We were in italy having lunch, thats a photograph of when i spoke at the joint session of congress, i really love it because it showed that jim drawing speaks to my eloquence. Some grandchildren, the previous picture, grandfather from ireland who had a lovely irish place there. The house in Marthas Vineyard. The paintings are here and there around the house. We give them to the children. That is one from our hotel room in boston. Thats the bostons public garden. Host how long did it take you to do these watercolors. David in montana, thats a little sketch near the house we lived. Its something ive always loved to do. And thats our oldest daughter melissa and her first granddaughter caitlin. John mcdonald her husband. This the Public Library across the street where i was a trustee. So you see, you see your house, he had to go through the garden to get to the library. I used to say would you like to go into the library for brandy and cigars. And we would go across the street. [laughter]. And is the church where some of our children were married. And that was the corner where we lived. Host if this increases and this. Whos in this photo. David is a picture of my mother. Probably taken before i was born. Mother on the left and my aunt Marty Mccullough on the right. I love it because its such a wonderful. And photograph it was a great old car the background. The course always date the photographs. Always put carney photograph and youll know when it was taken. But i appreciate the picture because my aunt marty who is in the picture was going to give me a copy of mathematics when i graduated from yale. Shes catholic and this started me reading shelby which starting me reading a lot of other people. I did not know it at the time but it really change my life because i began to sense what i wanted to do as a writer. David mccullough is the author of a dozen books printed into some winter of a prize. Hes appeared on book tv more than 50 times. Our look at this program for moral cause continues. With the top host of the Washington Post in 2002. Here he reflects on the Research Conducted for his 1983 book, about the Brooklyn Bridge. David had a lunch with several friends and restaurants in the Lower East Side of washington, new york. The two friends from both engineers they both started talking about all of the builders at the Brooklyn Bridge hadnt known when they set out to create this unprecedented structure. In my first book had been about the johnstown flood which was really a study in human shortsightedness. Someone with irresponsibility. There is a theme to the johnstown book which really it is perilous, certainly extremely dangerous always to assume that because people are in positions of responsibility, they are therefore behaving responsibly did that was the mistake that they were all making and johnstown. At the cost of more than 2000 lives. It was not an act of god, it was the fault of human beings. What happens in life, and certainly happens in publishing, you very quickly typecast after the book came out, had two publishers approached me and wanted me to do a book about chicago fire and the other 11 me to do a book about the San Francisco earthquake. And at the age of about 35, was being casted as bad news mccullough. And didnt like that. In fact, what i really wanted that stage in my outlook or outlook, on life and the human condition, with some symbol of information because we are not s shortsighted. We do know how to solve problems as human beings and we do have the capacity to do greater things than we know. And the imperfect people working together can often achieve noble creative works. And listening to these two men talk about the Brooklyn Bridge, at the lunch i suddenly thought that is it. That is the symbol of affirmation that i have been looking for. In came out of that restaurant and is working then as an editor in new york and i had some of the waiting for me back at the office to talk about something or other. I just forgot completely about it. I was so excited about the idea and so motivated. I went to immediately 242nd Street Library in new york. And it took this marvelous players up to the third floor with the hard catalogs work. I think for the time. Coaches propelled by the smoke that was already acquiring a structured the design in my head. And all he wanted to know was had somebody already done it. And if about the drawer number over 100 cards in the subject of the Brooklyn Bridge. But not one according to the descriptions on the cards that was the book i had in mind to write. I knew nothing about bridge engineering. Nothing about physics or mathematics in one of the lessons that i learned in the process of writing the book is if you are motivated, you can learn anything. And if you work it out yourself, if you unravel it to yourself, if you struggled to understand it on your own, you will know it in a way that you will never lose it. It will never go away. And im very interested in how we learn things. And how we teach people. And we have traditionally. And so much of it is just handed it to the students pretty well know how we can study a of study from the exam. For days and days and then we take the exam and we do fairly well. And maybe even very well. And then two months or two years, it is gone. I could go today 30 years later and take a test on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in the details of the structure of the details and do externally well because it is part of me now. It was always part of me because i had to do it on my own struggling to work it out myself. Its one of the reasons i think we need to bring much more of the Lab Technique to the teaching of humanities and we do presently. We then drove up to wrestler from her home there in white plains, and it was a beautiful saturday afternoon in the fall. Every thing wasnt glorious color and we got to the campus in troy, new york and it was almost no one there. It mustve been a football weekend or something. We went to the library which was an old church that had been converted in to a library, very dark Victorian Church and i went to the disconnect called in advance and i said we are here to look at the collection. Norman said, though we are so shorthanded today, i will just indicate that he go up to the top of the stairs, all of the way to the attic, and there are light switches on the way up the stairs, and if you turn left, there is a door to a closet to the left of the top of the stairs. We went up the stairs and turning on the light switches, which were like 40watt bulbs. And the stairs creaked. It was like something out of stephen king. And we got to the top of the stairs and we turn to the left, and we took the key and opened the door and there was a closet, its really a small room with shelves all around from floor to ceiling, it was jammed with material. Scrapbooks, all the boxes of letters, photographs, all kinds of notes of some kind. You cannot tell what they were pretty they were tied up in old shoestrings and you could tell that the shoestrings had never been untidy. They sort of form that that look that shoestrings get 30 years later. They have never been untidy. And there was john rollings, the designer of the bridge from the doorknob from washington and the house on brooklyn heights, everything imaginable. And it looked like something in somebodys closet up in an attic. But it was the volume of it, the amount and i looked at it and i went oh my god, and rosemary looked at it and she said oh my god. [laughter]. There goes three years of our lives. It was the proverbial compounded attic of how i dont know how many times. And it did take three years to go through the material to write the book. And they work in many ways, three of the best years of my writing life. I was telling marie earlier before this event started that i have written a number of books and something to read the book the subject of the book is sort of done when you finish pretty we feel well that is it that i have said i would want to say about this. And you really dont want to turn back again. But that has never been true for the subject of the Brooklyn Bridge. It is an infinitely interesting structure. An infinite police fracture and work of the greatest importance of the work. A lesson of so many kinds. I hope in a brief way i can just talk about that first of all it is a great urban event. It is a great expression of the ideal of the city. When the community committed to the ideal of the city. And it stands at the very gateway of our nation, of our country and particularly in the day, in the 19th century, it was the gateway for millions of immigrants coming up the harbor to the new world. There was nothing like it in the world. There was nothing like it in the country. Those towers on the Brooklyn Bridge when they were completed which still seems like very much today, but the tallest structures in the north American Continent taller than even the capital here in washington. And they were an of the beginning of highrise ores Kenneth Clark says, heroic new york. It was the first time it began to appear that this city was not going to grope out, it was going to grow up. Note the concept of the vertical city was new. And furthermore, it was hitherto impossible and in the Brooklyn Bridge, by the ingredients of highrise and skyscraper urban america. Right there because it contained both heroic scale and steel. The first use of structural steel and enjoy. Any structure in new york. Except for the hes bridge, in st. Louis which still stands, that was a major use of structural steel anyway, then it was transformed this country. Now we talk about revolutions. Social revolutions. Economic revolutions. They created by the advent of cheap steel. It is one about which tube little has been written and understood. It is one of the major changes in the whole character natural and complicit keep complexity of the country. The bridge also contains in its design, the concept we are in and work of engineering is performing, its service to the quality of life in the city. If you have been to the Brooklyn Bridge, if you have walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, you know exactly what i talk about. It is the boardwalk. It is how you walk over the bridge. Instead of putting pedestrians sidewalks or walks on the outside of the bridge on the perimeter of the bridge, these and put them inside the bridge, inside that great net of vertical cables. So that you and above the traffic, vehicular traffic, so that when you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, you feel contained in that network of cables and are not in the edge of the bridge so all of the fears and uneasiness that can go with that argument. Furthermore, your above because youre both traffic, you can enjoy the view in a way that you cant annoy the bridge. There had never been bridge with the pedestrian walkway was so designed and tragically never been one since brendan mentioned an outcome of the engineers who designed the bridge, the bridges, i think spent weeks and months and years studying how to put that railing exactly the point of when you go across the in a car you cannot see anything. [laughter]. [applause]. But the engineers wrote in their original prospectus the idea was that people could on a sunday afternoon, on the weekend day, could go with your family or your boyfriend or your children walk up and out of the city of higher than you have ever been in your life because there were many buildings that were more than about five stories high. And year above the river and is a river it is a title straight. It is saltwater with a big tide, four 6 feet and there the river those days. And for single swipe under the bridge and the bridge is okay because it was built in the age of sale and they wanted the ships that were coming and going from the Brooklyn Navy yard upstream to be able to do so without trimming their tops and only the very biggest of the ships of the day had do that. Thisll put us at the beginnings of the advent of steam on the rivers present could see all sorts of steamboats and sailboats and feel the fresh air. Enjoy yourself. Have a thrill of knowing that you are in new york city. You are in brooklyn, you are in the greatest metropolis that was thought to be the greatest country on earth. And watching the tv on cspan2 and were taking a look at other programs with Award Winning historian David Mccullough in 2005 he appeared at the National Book festival in washington dc. To discuss specs seller 1776. David the revolutionary war era was more important to who we are in the way we are and what we hope to be in our american secular faith, and most people realize. And unfortunately for a very large degree, it is pretrade so often almost as though the people who were involved in particularly the state the figures in a costume pageant. The clothing at the time, run directions of people in the paintings by gilbert stuart, or Charles Wilson peel, landed this sort of theatrical quality through them. We dont see them in photographs. And no recordings of their voices. We cant see films footage of them. In fact in the case of those who fought in the war, we have no on the spot drawings by artists or correspondents such as Winslow Homer who covered the civil war. It is almost impossible to reach them as we would reach people in the civil war when the first world war. Except for what they wrote. With the roman diaries, and letters, and sometimes, the orderly books and records of one kind of or another. In memoirs or autobiographies written after the fact. The newspaper coverage is nothing like you would expect. There is no correspondence covering the war. No reports coming back to be published in the papers across the country. And by and large, would have to conclude that we dont know what they looked like. But we do know what they look like in part because of deserved or notices. When men deserted from the race, when they went home with a win over to the inside. Notices would be published in the papers or the stores. The country stores. And they were very descriptive. Because they hope to find these people. And one can throw those descriptions is the realization of how different from all of us they looked. Very few who fought with washington, in march with washington in 1776, mark uniforms. Even the officers rarely had full uniforms. Washington himself the vagueness to get uniform because he felt that was part of his role as a leader. To look like the leader. To look like the general. But the men in the ranks work wearing everything imaginable. And they were not supplied with replacements for what they wore. So as the year for on commuter clothing became tattered, mended to, dirty, and eventually in rags or worse than rags. And the times themselves, they era in which they lived with so much harder than what we understand. Life or somebody in 18 century even in peacetime, was very difficult by our standards. Very uncomfortable. Filled with danger and threats of disease. Filled with the possible accidents and physical destruction to become from work. People were beat up but life more than we are in our times. There were no more orthodontists or dentists, no cosmetic surgeons to say the least. So that someone with a severe childhood injury against Daniel Greenwood walk for the rest of his life in the left coming from an accident. John trumbull, the great painter is works hang in the capital, the signing of the declaration of independence, they make missing it paining one of the most important things in our history when washington returned command of the army back to the Congress Pretty he returned his power to congress printed something no general had ever done at the end of the revolutionary war. He only had the use of lanai. And again because of a childhood injury. Henry knox, i thought of one hand blown off in a hunting accident as a young man. And on and on. People were missing teeth, and a calfskin there i or they had a way of holding their head on their shoulder because of something that had happened to them. Ice life was dangerous and difficult and people were resilient. They were tough and strong to a degree that is something we too seldom forget. We in our times, we are softies. By contrast. It is hard for us to imagine what it would be like to have sleeping epidemic dysentery or smallpox typhus and typhoid, sleep through our town or community in our city and take the lives of hundreds of people all around us. And of course when the war came on, suffering and the tragedy and the sorrow. It cannot be measured with any statistics. Abigail adams said future generations who will reap the blessings, will have little idea, little imagine what we have suffered in their behalf. And she was right. The war was the longest in our history except for the vietnam war. Eight and a half years. It was also very blood a proportionate to the population. 25000 americans were killed. To us, living in the less brutal statistics of the 21st centuries of war casualties and suffering worldwide. 25000 does that sound like a great deal. 25000 it was 1 percent of the population of 2,500,000. And if we were to fight a revolutionary war today, with our population, that would mean just over 3m would be killed. Some their time, it was a horrible war. And it is extremely costly to the people estate home and had to make do without their husbands to work the farm or to be the breadwinner for a family. Now i would like to review a little bit of some of these deserter notices. Theyre very colorful. Very picturesque. In a way, theyre describing people who are immediately identifiable in a way that we are not used to. Very much like the characters in dickinson. When George Reynolds of robillard island was 5 feet nine and a half inches tall, age 17, and carried his head something on his right shoulder. Thomas williams was an immigrant, an old countryman it says, means he was from the old country. He was on an old money man from the country, probably from ireland or wales or somewhere of that time. He spoke good english but had a film in his left eye. David of softy fellow was wearing a white coat, jacket and breaches and ruffled shirt when last seen. Deserted col. Bristers and captain harveys company sent a notice the essex connecticut, one simeon smith and greenfield, and joinder by trade, about 5 feet 4 inches high. Had a blue coat and a black vest, a mental button on his heads. Black long hair, black eyes, his voice and ahead back to fight masculine rather predominant. Likewise, a small smart fellow, established by trade, gray handed younger looking in his face and said i swear i swear. In between his words, had a green coat in an old red greatcoat pretty has two coats to see. One is red one is when he said right against her. Although we were something of a sober look. Likewise john davey, along home shouldered fellow, shoemaker by trade. Draws his words and for comfortable is as comfortable. He had on a green coat with leather reaches leblancs and blossom of his 14th. And these men are largely anonymous, were the ones who went and did the hard marching and fighting and marching and fighting again and again month after month and made the words the noble ideals of the declaration of independence more than just a declaration. More than just words on paper. When we celebrate the fourth of july, we celebrate the great opening passages of the declaration of independence and we celebrate that all men are created equal. Life liberty and the pursuit of happyness. None of that wouldve been possible without the men who marched with washington through 1776 and beyond. And doubt thank that they were all heroes. They were not. Hundreds deserted. Thousands deserted as time went on. Thousands more went home when their enlistments were up. The only enlisted for a year. When the time came to go home, there was nothing to stop them and many of them just marched away. When washington was in the retreat across new jersey, and his army was down to rags and many of the men were without shoes and winter was coming on. In the british were coming on fast behind them and forces beyond anything that washington could even imagine. When soldiers were well trained, well shot, with good clothes and good equipment. When i was going on, and one full point, in december 2000 and the lessons were 2000 men came up to thousand men marshaling went home with no shame. Washingtons army was down to 3000 men. Thats all that were left. So in effect, quite literally, we owe what we have in him we are and all that we hold sacred to about 3000 it men who would not quit. And that was because they were led by a man who would not quit. George washington was not a great intellectual like jefferson or adams or hamilton. He was on a brilliant speaker like his hello virginian after cannery. But George Washington was, was a leader. He was a man of phenomenal courage, physical and moral courage. He was a man who could spot great talent and other people give them a chance and to the best man he picked, he picked within two weeks after first leaving them nathanael greene, and henry knox. And he picked them despite the fact that they were new englanders they just liked new englanders bad. They thought they were the mess they had and they were the best yet. Those two men, during, with washington, were the only general officers who stated that the entire length of the war. Who did not leave. Who would not quit. Youre watching the tv on cspan2. Marshaling highlights from historian David Mccullough, many appearances in 2017, mr. Mccullough published the american spirit. A collection of speeches he has given throughout his career. He spoke at the john f. Kennedy president ial library in boston. The about how history can inform us today. David when i talk about harry truman, love the idea that he went on out for a walk of their morning. So i thought i should try that. As a way of sort of, toning up ahead, not necessarily your body. They start thinking in a way that you dont if youre not working. And so, last summer when the comments being made by the republican candidates for the presidency work to me, not only appalling but unimaginably out of place. I thought what can i do to provide some Counter Point of view to this. I started thinking about some of the speeches that i gave in National Occasions such as the 200th anniversary of the congress, the anniversary of the white house, kennedys Memorial Service at dallas. Which i have been to be the speaker. Then commencement speeches and speeches that i had given that particular occasions of importance to the history of other organ it organizations or universities. And found that there were great many where i was voicing what really matters to me and why i think history so intimately fascinating. And how essential you think it is. If the experience of being alive. Why should we live in our lives, just as little bit of time of our biological box. When we can have access to the whole realm of the human story. Going back hundreds and thousands of years. So i said to work to take a look at which of the speeches might be appropriate and had the help of my daughter dori lawson who arranged all of these talks that i gave. And have kept the records of what i said. Host when i read the book the first time and i finished it and put it down. I thought oh he is writing in the times are he is picking these speeches because they might be proposed to the current times. And while every state before, historians basically do not really have a role in talking about current politics when he is talking about current politics the speeches. David i was talking about this before current politics came on the scene. None of these speeches were written. Host i was thinking what is the paragraph what is the sentence of the point he is trying to make here. That might be taken to heart by people who were in politics right now. So i went back and read it a second time. Any time i was looking in the speech, what is the one point he is trying to make here. It might be taken to heart by somebody who i know might be elected president. Who knows. So again a few of them. What do each one but i think 12 out of 16, i found the example one. For speech, in the book from 1989. Margaret k smith, when the guts to rip rebuke joe mccarthy. She said i dont want to see the Republican Party and she was a republican, ride the political victory on the four horsemen. Figure ignorance, bigotry. And a smear. Smear is a pretty interesting work here. Why did you think perhaps that had applications of the current times. [laughter]. David if you only get a sense of humor. [laughter]. Host could you imagine somebody in the current political environment who would read that printed. David wouldnt be wonderful. And shes a woman and shes republican. In a rare cares, women in the senate and the point in history. And most people today know did not know who she was preaching the most bravest political figures we have ever had. Host not many republicans are standing up now pretty 1998, a speech according to Benjamin Rush not perhaps wellknown some of the patriots at the time. One of the original signers of the declaration. Speaking of good nature. The matter most in human relations, he said when you put in the book, this is quote. I included candor gentleness, disposition to speak with civility and listen with attention to everybody. In the new ended in 1998 in the speech, wears to the wise, then perhaps in our own day, more than ever. David indeed, Benjamin Rush is one of my favorite characters from our past. An absolutely remarkable man. In the 18th century, someone who is interested in almost everything. It was accomplished physician, he was one of the first people to encourage humane fair treatment of people with mental illness. And not to just suck shush them away in a cell as if they were animals. He was extremely courageous in his ability to go into places where plague, it was running rampant. Yellow fever epidemic in. He pressed his life over and over. He was one of the signers of the declaration of independence. And when he signed the declaration of independence, he was only 30 years old. We forget how young those people work. Jefferson when he wrote the declaration of independence was only 33 years old. Imagine, washington when he took command of the continental army, was 44 years old. We see them later on with white hair and their ways and their elderly statures and so forth. They were in that way. They were very very young. I think thats encouraging fact in this part of our story. I do think we could ever though enough about the American Revolution and by the way, the new museum of the american britt revolution is just opened in philadelphia is a must for all of us. It is marvelous and particularly as a place to take your children and your grandchildren to get them hooked on history. His brilliantly organize inspect help killer, building by rober roberts. And its right in the center of where all of the historic neighborhood is. Its only a few steps down the street from the independence hall. We lived in the boston area, we sort of take the reality of the miracle of that era as part of our environment. Part of the world thats good. Thats great. But, i love kennedys profiles. I read that when i was still young and not really aware yet what i wanted to do with my life. I love his regard for John Quincy Adams for example pretty close in right at the beginning. Host what i like about that quote is the word civility. And its a lost art in the Public Discourse of america today. A sense of common see, that existed among people who share a common goal and nope there needs to be a common end. It is gone. And you write that we have in many instances had deep chasms of division in this country. But we come out of them. What is going to bring us out of this one. The two sides seem so to open opposed. Trumps policy when the sense of National Goals is gone. Particles matter more than National Goals. What brings us out of it. David leadership of the best kind. Leaders who have the courage to stand up for their convictions. Who have the backbone to do what is right irrespective of what it means to their political future or their chance of being reelected. And it has to come mainly from the people. And we talk about, the three segments of government. Legislation, judicial and executive. There is a fourth factor. The people. All of us. And when we stand up, and we say, no more of this. We wont take this anymore. When we stand up and say, there is a person right there who is saying the right thing and doing the right thing and were going to get behind her or him and make sure that attitude becomes important may be decisive. And Margaret Chase smith, said that is what im going to do. It will happen. Well have an out of necessity to survive. Were going to expect that. Host we actually believe and we are right, we are basically country where 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 percent of the people are in the middle and want government to get something done. David absolutely. Host we aint doing it. It. David that doesnt mean we want. We have come through very hard times, very pessimistic times. An inappropriate behavior times. The part of our leadership but we have come through them all. And very often when we do come through them, these difficult times, hard clouded sky times but we did come through with an art better for having done it. We are better off. People talk about what that was a simpler time back then. No it wasnt. There never was a simpler time. For the same things have never been so bad. So foreboding. Yes they have. If you dont understand that, you dont understand the reality of our story. I like to point out that the influenza epidemic, which my parents and your parents probably went through, 1980 in 1919, 500,000 americans died. Of the disease, disease they didnt know where it came from, the didnt know if it would never go away at all or how to cure it. If that were to happen today, given the size of our population, proportionate to our population, 1,500,000 people would die in less than one year. Now imagine if that were in the nightly news every night, it would be even more terrifying with who would be next in her family to die. And just as the depression in the civil war, horrible horrible things but we came through them. Because among other things, we knew that we could and would. And because we understood that much consequences, ever accomplished alone. It has to be a joint effort. Thats what they have to come back to understand. Hard look at historian David Mccullough from our archives includes with his recount of the pioneers, and the Northwest Territory. This event is from 2019. At the ohio state in columbus. It. David the big change, vic said in revelation that there was something thrilling was when i eventually after i finished the Wright Brothers book, i got down to marietta because i heard there was a collection of wonderful archival material there. My assistant, probably the greatest researcher in america today, and i saw this breathtaking collection. I knew we had opened king tuts tomb. It was really brilliant. We just try to describe why it was thrilling. It isnt just that there is so much of it, there are literally thousands and thousands of letters and diaries memoirs, unpublished, journals maps. Data of all kinds, drawings and magnificent oil painting. But its the quality of it all. The quality of the writing some the quality of the thinking, the quality will of the expressions of what the word broken hearted about what they were fearful of and how they were suffering. In the work they had to do. In the onset of epidemic disease and the natural fiascoes in the storms and the earthquakes and all of it happening one after another. One year they almost starved to death. And compared to them, we are all a bunch of softies. [laughter]. Truly. I can go on for hours about the lessons of this history and why history is so beneficial, so important. So enlarging of life. And i of the most important lessons to be learned and passed on to our children and grandchildren. The first is empathy. The level to be able to put yourself into the other persons place. To imagine what life mightve been like then. What they went through. And if the same for people in our own times, you have to understand why other people phyllis they do about things and put yourself in their place. If they and secondly, gratitude. Gratitude for all that other people do for our benefit or did long ago. And we should never take that for granted. We should never say well thats the way it is. In one of the things that we unfortunately sometimes to take for granted, is the Public School system. Another thing is that we and all men are created equal. That is just on paper, but in fact, those two parts of our life our natural life, began here. First Public School systems anywhere in the country. Here in ohio did because of one man primarily. The charter of the northwest ordinance, 1887, 1787. States very clearly there will be public education. There will be complete freedom of religion. There will be an attitude toward the native americans that is fundamentally respectful and decent. And and and there will be no slavery. And remember their heart slavery and all of the original 13 colonies. Still that time. We have hundreds of slaves living over here in the same borders. Its not going to be that way in ohio. And that was still primarily, if not say entirely, who wrote the basic tenets of the northwest ordinance, and to his son ethan. Now the woman, she was with the cold, the 18th century polymath, someone who knew a lot about everything. Those interested in everything. Doctor of law, doctor of medicine and doctor of divinity. All three and had practiced all three. He was probably i would say almost certainly, the leading american botanist of his day. He was an astronomer, he was interested in languages. He was interested in everything. And he believed in the importance and the essential necessity in the good life of learning. And love of learning like very few americans are anybody i have ever come to know or read about. He never lived here. He came out to see how everything was going but had too much going on back home. That was in hamilton massachusetts which is just north of boston. His church, and his parsonage are still there. Very superb condition. The place with the first ever covered wagon left and came to ohio, still there. And a son came out here. With his wife and four children. And they young and theyre hopeful and they know how to dress themselves too hard work. Even the most difficult daily tasks of being a former in the Rocky Mountains of new england, was thought to be anything comparable to what they faced here. They came out and on the way, just coming down the ohio river, two of their children died of disease. He had to be buried in the banks of the river there were no sediments or anything. Imagine. They arrive here and this is cutler, they stepped off the boat. And strain his ankle badly. He was suffering from disease himself when he arrived here. They knew no one. So they had to begin as everyone else to do but hard work. We have no idea how hard if those people work night and day every day and all of the children worked men and women in all of the children worked right away. Now ethan cutler had not had the education his father had because he had been raised by his grandparents who were farmers in connecticut. This is very important to keep in mind because of what he had done. Ethan cutler, was asked in an interview just the other day, and ohio, of all of the scenes in my book, which do i wish i couldve been there to watched first person i knew right away. There was a big movement, the came after the election of thomas jefferson. The jeffersonians will because they didnt really have a party name yet. And sometimes they were known as the jeffersonians. They had to decide theyre going to get rid of this role there would be no slavery and introduce slavery into ohio. And two people in the legislature were leading the fight and the charge to stop that. To keep it from turning into a slave state. When was general ruth is putnam who was in fact the leader of the group they came to several here. Loyalty then. And then the wind was ethan cutler himself who is young at this point. And he is absolutely devoted to stopping this change and he gets quite ill and the capital there, and he could hardly get out of the bed. As he was some russian whether he would survive her lip. In the day the boat it was going to take place the boat, rufus putnam came into the room of the boardinghouse room nearby. He was old enough to be his father. And he came in a sand cutler you must get well and meaner place, you will lose your favorite measure. Then according to one account, put them in and the men carried him to the convention on a stretcher. But there is no revival evidence of this. Color himself he said i went to the convention i moved the strikeout the noxious matter and made my objections as forcibly as i was able. It was an act of fortitude and the result was never ever to be forgotten here. It cost me every effort i was capable of making heroes. Then passed by a majority of one vote only. Because he had got enough from his suffering and going in there and voted, it was stopped. And it would be no slavery, and much snow slavery in ohio but all of Northwest Territory which included indiana, illinois and michigan and wisconsin. Now imagine if the slaves had been admitted imagine what wouldve happened. There would have been no underground railroads. There would have been no Harriet Beecher of the cabin the most influential powerful novel ever written by any american. If this is bennett slave, they probably wouldve been no Abraham Lincoln or you. Ellipsis grant, the whole picture wouldve been different. This one man, the one man whose no statue of him. Hes not mentioned in any of the history books. And he is been in effect, totally forgotten. So imagine the excitement that we felt, to hear all of his letters. All of his private correspondence with his wife, and others. The platinum collection is well over a thousand pieces. If you missed any of these other programs with the historian David Mccullough wanted wash them in their entirety you can visit her website, booktv. Org. Archives by using the search box at the top of the page. In search David Mccullough in book. Jonathan horn as a speechwriter for president george w. Bush. He spoke recently at George Washingtons phone, mount vernon where he discussed final years of americas first president. George washington sort, he feels like he cannot sit on the sidelines. If everything has worked his whole life for is, if his country which is really is like, he is the founder of this country. He needs to come out of retirement to do his duty and at the same time, he is hesitant because he hasnt questions. For example, he is worried about what people will say. He is very sensitive to criticism. He thinks that all the things that he says in his second term of the presidency about how his longing for, he said it was a sham and it could be happy in retirement. He is worried, is he too old for the job or is there somebody who is younger, and the pressure having terrific success with the general today. Be very young. The final thing George Washington is worried about his wilkie damages legacy. And his legacy is so important to him at the stage in his life. Its always been important to him. Hes already been very caring and conscious of his role in history and he doesnt want to do something that is going to sacrifice the fame is already earned. It is one of the reasons he had this condition. In the condition is that he does not want to take active command of this army unless there is an actual invasion by france. And he wants to choose the second in command who will serve as the chief and is absent. And for that position, for a variety of reasons, hands of choosing somebody who he actually has been warned that john adams, specifically does not want and that person is the star of everyones favorite musical. Al. [laughter]. To watch the rest of this event and find other other programs about George Washington, visit our website booktv. Org and search for George Washington and both. At the top of the page