Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books By David McCullough 20240713

Assassination and a number of president s were already assassinated, why wouldnt the government have protections from him . There were pensions for army officers, everybody else but no pension for president s. In fact he had very little money. He had to borrow some money secretly, which dean addison cosigned. To pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but you need cash to cover all the expenses of moving out of the white house. And when he got home in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, it is memoirs which no other president had ever done except for Herbert Hoover but hoovers time in office was much briefer than trumans and trumans presidency covered far more tumultuous history and hoovers had so to undertake the 2 volume memoir was a very major ambitious task. And then he built his library. Now, there had been a previous president ial library. Franklin Roosevelt Library at hyde park but it was established after roosevelt died in office so truman was the first president to officiate over the establishment of his president ial library and again , he was beginning something new. One of the things ive tried to imply or to emphasize in the book is that truman was at heart a very creative public figure. It was a creative president. His was a creative presidency. The roads, he built courthouses and when he got to washington he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house with a great flurry of criticism and of course he is the one who entirely rebuilt the white house. The white house we have today was really the house that harry built. Except for the outer shell which was maintained of the original outer shell. The entire interior is a reconstruction of the entire house and he took part of every detail of that reconstruction. He loved the building and he loved creating and of course in a larger way his presidency is marked by such creative and innovative acts as the Marshall Plan and truman doctrine and nato and 24 and so forth so to begin to be a builder in this last chapter of his life appealed to him tremendously and building the library, having his office at the library, welcoming guests they are, taking people around the library became his life and it was tragic when he went to europe. Did you ever meet him . I saw him once when i was a youngster in my first job in new york. I was story i and ive gotten a job at a news magazine called Sports Illustrated and i was coming home from work one night and we lived in brooklyn and i came out of the subway stop at the old Sanctuary Hotel and a car pulled up and governor hammond stepped out. And i had never seen a governor before so i was excited about that and out stepped president truman, former president truman and i was astonished and i remember thinking my god. He is in color. Because we only had black and white television. Black and white newspapers. And i think the fact that he had high color, he radiated good health, made him seem very just notjust vital that a person. And he certainly didnt seem like a little man to me. To me at that moment itwas six foot eight. But i never spoke to him. I never met him. Ive often thought wouldnt be interesting if you couldgo back in time and i could be able to reach out and touch him on the shoulder in 1956 that fall night and saymister president , im going to write your biography someday. Knowing what you know, what do you think he would think of this . Im sure theres some of it you wouldnt like because this is after all an honest attempt to see the complete man with his flaws and faults. But i would hope that in some he would think i had understood him betterthan other people have. I think that he was a much much more complicated, complex keenly intelligent man. Thoughtful, considerate man and the stereotyped harry truman portrait implies. He isnt James Whitmore playing give them hell harry. He isnt just a salty, downhome miserywill rogers. And all the people ive interviewed who knew him and worked with him and were in the white house with him, all say please understand that this man was much more than met the eye. How many interviews did you do . About 126 arranged across a broad spectrum. Some people who hardly knew him at all but some who come and go as neighbors or people in independence but also some of whom were so important that i interviewed them many times over during the 10 years it took me towrite the book. Who didyou spend the most time with . I would guess in total perhaps either margaret truman, his daughter or george elsie who was on the white house staff and Mark Clifford and some of the secretservice people who were invaluable because they were with him all the time. And many of you have never been interviewed interviewed about him. Are secret serviceallowed to talk after the fact . Apparently so. They are wonderful because they saw him offstage. They saw him under all conditions and often under enormouspressure. Tension, attempted assassination. Two of the secret service men who are still here in washington me through the whole event from both inside and outside blair house where it tookplace. I spent the better part of one saturday doing that and im thats never been done before so my account and that is based on materials that can only be had by reaching that time through living people. And their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing tolisten to. And its true of all the people that worked for him at all levels. I did not sing to him well worth wanted to tell me what terrible back or or difficult boss he was to work with. At closer people work to him, they were hoping i would add some fall out of the closet that never happened. When you start out . 10 years ago. I was looking subject. Working on a book. I had to go around the bar with pablo and i because i found so. It wasto me, a human being. And it really i did meet venture. It was an immensely. I have a lot of but i found his treatment of his family, his attitude towards women. It wasnt somebody i wanted to five years ago at with as a roommate. My that i think about doing Franklin Roosevelt because at that time there was not a good one biography of Franklin Roosevelt. And just on impulse, just in a vessel way i said number if i were going to do a 23 president it would be Franklin Roosevelt, truman and he said well, why not harry truman. So i looked into it and i found that there was not my life. The last chapter that you, part of his life has never been written about before and advises your life. For part of his life and my own was this immense collection of letters and diaries which he poured himself out on paper, all of his life and he left a written personal very revealing record unlike that of any president that i know of and im sure were never going to have another president leaves anything like that much more i anymore. He did both his whole life and long before he ever realized he was quite the figures in history. In one, in one month in 1947 when he was president and when his wife best was back in and looking after her mother, harry truman, the president of the United States over 37 times. And these are just simple how are you the weather is turning cool, the ever find out how you . The actual letters all survive. Yet wonderful clear straightforward strong handwriting just like he was. But fortunately, very legible so that theres never a problem reading his handwriting. As there was very, never a problem understanding what he was talking about. Also point out that he and his wife, best truman called her daughter every night in new york. Yes. They were very close. The same people that were with him has secret service or white house staff, domestic at five familythey had ever known in the white house. And though they dont want to be quoted by person, they all say truman was their favorite president. It was the first president to walk out to the kitchen. And first president in their memory to walk out to the kitchen. To thank the chef or the cook for the dinner that night. They remember Calvin Coolidge was to see if anybody was filtering food. Truman knew everybody by name on the staff, knew all about their families. This wasnt sort of a politicians device. Its just the way he was. And the whole give them hell harry, harry truman on the job at the office, in the white house with his people, the lowest level or the highest level never gave any one hell. Never raised. If anything is remembered for howconsiderate he was. And for small favors. Mccullough has appeared on cspan more than 75 times including appearances on book tv up next one was the recipient of the period he lived until 1826. The age of nearly 91. He lived longer than any president in our history. He has been commonly thought of as a rich boston blueblood. He was none of those. It was rich, it wasnt a bostonian and he wasnt a blueblood. It was a farmer son because of a scholarship discovered books as he said forever. John adams was the most deeply and broadly read american of his bookish time. And lets please today remember it was john adams, second president of the United States who signed legislation that created the library of congress. Though to be here talk about john adams, to remember john adams is altogether particularly appropriate at this occasion. He was a man of genuine brilliance. He was also a man of great heart, great humor. Voted to his country. Truthful, devoted to his wife , to his family hardworking, godfearing. One of the greatest greatest patriots in our history area he was as well named, abrasive, sometimes from a. Overly concerned with his own position or place in the f of his friend. He was also a man to his credit also to his as he never did her popularity as mistress. He never reported. He was a plant man for it was. Behavior was that is the only founding father who ever never owned a slave as a matter of principle. We know its important to judge those who did own slaves in the context of their time. And fair and historically, the sensible sound do not forget that john and Abigail Adams were also of their time and they opposed slavery. Even more likely that one point i wonder if all prevails and suffering are going through our gods punishment or the sin of slavery. Slavery one through 40 well for. Not well before the declaration ofindependence. The declaration of independence as John Dickinson the signing of the declaration of independence was in many ways as dickinson said launching storm in a skiff made of paper. What made it more than just what he succeeded in the revolution, in the war. We fought for and succeeded gaining independence and john adams would not have said three independent, he would have said independent and free. You have to have independence, then comes the freedom and new englanders by nature, bicultural tradition fiercely independent people. Independence was a way of life. So was religion. I think this is of the utmost importance in understanding that time, that age, that moment in history and those protagonists. We believe in the separation of church and state and to a large degree theyall did to. But the separation of church and state in their time, in their minds and ive been spirit to separate church statement. And if we really want to understand that time and those people we have to understand the part that religion playedin their life and their whole outlook on what might happen next. They also had very Long Distance communication that took a lot of time and a lot of prevail and is almost beyond ourreckoning. To get a letter back and forth between philadelphia and boston for wednesday where the atoms lived in the cold rain free at least two weeks. Medication across the ocean and the abigail and john were separated work fully in family. Separate was created by the ocean communicated across the ocean. Reports of 3 to 6 months. And what did that mean . You cant just say its very inconvenient. Mens and personal life and in diplomatic or official life that one had to be more responsible than we understand today from ones own decisions area Abigail Adams at home running the family, running the farm, trying to balance accounts and keep able in good people working with her to make the farm workbecause that was the only means of subsistence. Trying to educate the children, taking decisions about whether to go get smallpox shot for example. And to make those decisions herself that she couldnt pick up the phone and asked her husband what should i do . That was life. Assumption of responsibility to ones self. When adams was serving in france and in the netherlands and in england as a diplomat, again and again he had to make momentous decisions on his own. Decisions that would affect the course of events at the time , and fortunes perhaps of the United States and its country but also of course his own career he made them because that was necessary. Nothing could be can indicated any faster than something could be transported. We think of to medication and transportation has two Different Things but at that time it was the same thing. No faster my sailboat or somebody on a horse. It works like we are because they live in a different time. A very different time and a very, very interesting time. Ive tried to read not only writing a book, i tried to read not only what they wrote , and oh my, did they write. Neither john or Abigail Adams was capable of writing a sentence or a short letter. And they wrote between the two of them over 1000 letters to each other. That has survived, they doubtless wrote many more than that but over 1000 have survived all in the Massachusetts Historical Society and all on rag paper and as a consequence those letters are as good as the day they were written and you can hold it in your own hand and youre holding that letter about the same distance from your eyes as they did with two hands as they did and believe me, something tactile, something very important, visceral happens when youre working the real thing area it isnt the same as seeing it on microfilm orreproduced in a book. By humanity, the mortality , the vulnerability of those people comes through and the bravery. Think of that woman alone in her 11 00 at night having been up since five in the morning doing all she did, sitting down and writing those letters and nearly always inserting into them into her letters some wonderful quote from one of her favorite poets or from shakespeare and nearly always getting it a little bit wrong. Which shows she didnt look it up. She wasnt taking a book off the shelf and copying it out. This will make me look erudite. She knew it was part of her. But there is equally important and equally rewarding experience in reading not just what they wrote what they read area and i did a small piece in the Washington Post this summer about that, going back and reading all those writers and so many of us were required to read in english courses in high school or college, Samuel Johnson and hope swift and defoe and Samuel Richardson and novels of Samuel Richardson. And to be reminded of how terrific they were. What wonderful writers. We talk about progress and heaven knows we live with the benefits of progress all the time and certainly when we go to the dentist. When i think of poor john adams with the end of his life not a tooth in his head. Every one of them. Had to be pulled. Long before novocain. But we have a certain fancy and a certain arrogance about progress. But when you read what they wrote in the 18th century, i dont think anybody does it any better today or even as well. And ill tell you Something Else that want to make us all sit up and shake up. And that is that the Literacy Rate in massachusetts was higher in their time and it is today. And what a disgrace that is real and what good work, what a lot of work still has to be done about that. The books that they read, affect their lives as they do our lives and our time. They affected their notion of truth, heroism, right and wrong. How you write a letter. John adams for example advised Young John Quincy dont try to write literature when you write a letter. Brain for thrills and fancy effect read right but when you talk. Its a letter, remember that. we thought so when you read his letters and to a very large degree the letters of lindsay, yourehearing them talk. And one of the things that ive done in my books and particularly in this book, one of the ways to approach biography is my way, im not saying it the right way, is to let them talk as much as possible. Most of life is talk if you think about it. And how they talk, the words they use. Thefigures of speech, the cadences , all of it is a reflection of personality. Of style, of the person. Abigail was hugely influenced by the writings of Samuel Richardson, particularly the great novel clarissa was one of the most popular novels of the 18th century and she wrote a very interesting letter to companies saying you want to read clarissa and you want to read, you want to write your letters the way they are in the novel area the whole novel is just letters, thats all it is. People writing lettersback and forth to each other and their written to the moment. Whats happening right now and thats the wayabigails letters are written. All of those letters that she wrote to her husband were written in large part because they were separated for so many years and there suffering they experienced by because of their separation is to our advantage because we as a consequence have the letters. But even when she was from, right. He would write to her sister mary for example, some of the best letters he ever wrote the point is right. He on paper feelings out on paper this is a very important point about writing for all of us. And youve all had the experience. Sit down and start to write something you find that you have an insight thought that you never would have had you hadnt required or forced yourself or wanted to write area something about writing focuses the brain a different way area open archives offer programs with historian david, read in 2001 he appeared on our monthly call in program in depth to discuss his books andwriting process. Here he gives us a tour of his own and where he writes. Video of your home and your writing shed. Where is it . Is not a shed. Its a real quarter. Thats our home, thats on the music street and west to very massachusetts, a village in the center of the island of martens vineyard. The house is part of the 18th century, part ofthe 19th century , part of it is 20th century. At the back porch looking out over the acre we own where we have gardens and a nice reach back to the border and onto a neighboring farm which has been in the same family since violence was first settled and this is in effect i want to work. Thats where i work right there. Measures 12 by eight feet area has windows on all four sides absolutely love it as about 800 books there and my faithful typewriter upon which i have worked now since about 1965. Every book ive ever written as been written on the old royal typewriter and its really an example of a beautifully made american machine. Its probably got 750,000 miles on it and it runs perfectly. Have you written every word in this room . Part of it was written in charlottesville and we lived there for a few years , the better part of the year when i was doing research at the library at the university of Virginia Area but essentially , all of it was written in that room. What kind of data you write . I work all day every day, im not writing all day, im correcting whatever the day before or going over notes or theres no telephone there. No music, theres a nice view but i have my back view so i wont be tempted by. Its far enough from the house, you see washington and some of his soldiers watching along. I hope they show that ended it because theres a guy at the end of that and identify with. Hes the one always a little slow catching up. Hes not quite there where were going to see him and i looked at him and hes my example area there is. Thats the one area hes always a little behind. And i work out there because when the children are young i didnt want them to have to be walking around, although thats a call to really look at whats in front of me as i work. Thats one of the earliest, i think theearliest photographs of the capital. I love thatphotograph. We can talk about this later, thats how im interested. This is a great line from adams letter to abigail about, and honest and wiseman never ruled on the under this roof which is indicated fair into the mantelpiece of the state dining room at the white house. Its a map of boston figures very importantly in the book im working on now. Of course it figured very portly, its a contemporary map in the john adams book. I did everything that, theres a wonderful crayon drawing by a french artist of john adams and i think its one of the best most representative of him ever done. And i just love drawing. I love you. I think and draw myself and since the only way we can see those people and things and drawings i find the things of the most important to try to reach the human being that ones writing about. Those are all about the letters of George Washington again, is one of what im working on. Those are some shards up on the property and we are building the building where i work. How long have you lived in the house . What in 1965 they must and you pay for a car today. It was high so we slowly resorted. Fix it up. The live in cornell. I was a writer in residence university of new mexico for a while and i spent probably in the aggregate of the year lease in independence missouri and i was working on the truman book. This is the other work area. This is where all of our paraphernalia of communications are located. The fax machine, the copying machine, the computer and so forth and thats a little sign that says no cell phones permittedin this room which i clipped from a hotel in london. Ilove little sign. Thats probably four to feel in italy, having lunch read at a photograph of when i spoke in joint session of congress and i loved it because it showed jim wright falling asleep to my eloquence. Some grandchildren, that was tom kane in the previous sure, rosies grandfather from ireland who had a lovely irish, thats one of my watercolors there. My house in marthas vineyard. The paintings are here and there around the house. I give them to children. Thats one from our hotelroom in boston. Thatsboston public gardens. How long did it take you to paint . These are watercolors which are done fairly quickly. Thats a little sketch of a farm near the house where we live, a little pen and ink that i did. Its something ive always loved to do and my oldest daughter melissa and her friends are. The public right library served as a trustee over the period so you see our house, you have to go there to getto the library. I used the sata my friends would you like to go to the library cars and we walk left the church where some of our children were married and thats right on the corner where we live. I have one of those old photographs youre talking. If presented. In this photo . Thats my mother, probably taken before i was born. Mother on the left and my aunt marty, on. I love it because its such a wonderful frantic photograph and it was a great old. [bleep] in the background. Cars always make photographs. Always put the car in your photograph and youll know when they were taken but i appreciate that picture because my aunt marty presented it in the picture was one gave me a copy of the stillness at i graduated. That started me reading hively which started me reading shelby put which started me reading a lot of other people and i didnt know it at the time but the bruce cotton book really changed my life because i began to sense what i wanted to do as a writer. David mccullough is the author of a dozen books and a two time winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book award. Hesappeared on tv more than 50 times. Our look at his programs from our archives continues with a talk hosted by the Washington Post. Here he reflects on the Research Conducted for his 1983 book about the Brooklyn Bridge. Ive had lunch with several friends and in a restaurant in the Lower East Side of washington of new york and the two friends are both engineers and people talking about all of the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge when they set out to create this unprecedented structure one which is really a study in human shortsightedness. Human responsibility the, theres a theme to the johnstown really perilous. Certainly extremely dangerous always. Assume that because people are in positions of responsibility they are therefore behaving responsibly. And that was a mistake, that all were making in johnstown and at the cost of more than 2000 lives. It wasnt a act of god, it was the fault of human beings. Life, certainly have is you very happy came out i had to publishers of what the chicago fire. Age of 35, was as bad mccullough. And i didnt like that. In fact what i really wanted to stay in my outlook on life on the human condition was some symbol of affirmation. Cause we arent always shortsighted. We dont know how to solve problems, we human beings and we do have capacity to do greater thingsthat we know. And an imperfect people working together and often achieve noble creative works. And listening to these two men talk about the Brooklyn Bridge that lunch, i suddenly thought thats it. Thats the symbol of affirmation that i have been looking for. And i came out of that restaurant and i was working then as an editor in new york and i had somebody waiting for me back at the office to talk about something. And i just forgot completely about it. I was so excited about the idea and so motivated i went to immediately before the library in new york area and i took those stairs third floor where the card catalog for a time area i was just compelled by this book was already acquiring after the desire in my head. All i wanted to know was already done. Ive about your endeavor or a big part of the Brooklyn Bridge but not one according to this descriptions on the cards that was the book i had in mind to write. I knew nothing about engineering. Nothing about physics or mathematics. And one of the lessons that i learned in the process of writing the book is that if youremotivated, you can learn anything. And if you workit out yourself , if you unravel yourself, if you struggle to understand it on your own, you will note 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 today and have traditionally so much of it is just handed to the students and we all know how we can study for how study for an exam for days and days when we go and we take the exam. We do fairly well or maybe evenvery well then two months , two years its on. And i could go today 30 years later and take a test on building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the details of the structure of the Brooklyn Bridge and do extremely well because its part of me now. Always going to be part of me because i had to do it on my own going to work it out myself. One of the reasons i think we need to bring much more of the Lab Technique to the teaching of humanity when we do presently. Rosalie and i then drove up to rensselaer from our home in white plains. It was a beautiful saturday afternoon in the fall. Everything was in glorious color. And we got to the campus of troy new york and if, there was almost no one there. Mustve been a football weekend and we went to the library which was an old church that had been converted into a library , a very dark korean church. And i went to the desk and i call in advance and i said where her to look at the roebling collection and the woman said we are so shorthanded today ill just give you the key and if you go up to the top of the stairs, all the way to the and there are light switches on the way up the stairs and if you turn left, theres the door to a closet light to the left of the topof the stairs. Well, we went up the stairs and turning on the light switches which were like 40 watt bulbs. And the stairs creek. It was like something out of stephen king and we got to the top of thestairs and turned to the left. Opened the door and there was a closet, the closet, it was a small room with shelves all around the floor to ceiling jammed with material. Scrapbooks, old boxes letter. The graphs. All kinds of notes of some kind, you couldnt tell what they were tied up in old shoes you could tell that fish. My friend 30 years later have never been on five area and there was a box on roebling the designer of the bridge. The doorknob from washington and emily roeblings house. Everything imaginable just like something in somebodys positive in an but it was the volume of it. The amount and i look at it and all my god. And rosalie look at it and shesaid oh my god. There goes three years of our lives. Well, it was the proverbial trunk in the attic compounded , i dont know how many times. And it did take three years to go through the material and write the book. And they were in many ways the three best years of my writing life. And i was telling marie earlier before this event started that there have, ive written a number of books and sometimes you write the book and the subject of the book is sort of don when youre finished. You feel that it. I said everything i want to say about this and you really dont want to turn back to it again. But that has never been true for the subject of the Brooklyn Bridge. It is an infinitely interesting structure. An infinitely interesting work of art of the greatest importance and its a lesson of so many times that i hope in a brief way i can talk about that. First is a great urban event. It is a great the ideal the city. Of a community committed to the ideal of the city. Its very about nation , of our country and particularly in that day in the 19th century was the gateway for millions ofimmigrants 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 dont seem like very much today were the tallest structures on the north american continent, taller than the capitol dome in washington and they were an expression of the beginning i said, rolling new york. It was the first time it would appear this to goout, it was going to grow up. The concept of a vertical city was new. Furthermore i wise guys urban america right there, because it contains both gail and steel. Use in a major way and for the needs bridge in st. Louis which still stands, the first major use of structural steel anywhere in the fourth deal was going to transform this country. We talk about revolutions, social revolution, read a revolution created by neil is one about which doolittle has been written too little understood that it was one of the major changes the whole character, nature of the country and the direction of the country area the bridge also contained in its Design Concept wherein a work of engineering is performing a service to the quality of life in the city. If youve been to the Brooklyn Bridge, if you walk across the Brooklyn Bridgeyou know exactly what im talking about. Its thewalk , its how you walk over the bridge area instead of putting pedestrian sidewalks or walks on the outside of the bridge, on the perimeter of the bridge, the designer puts the inside the bridge, inside that great net of vertical stage and cables. So that you and of all the traffic, the vehicle or traffic so that when you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge you feel contained in that network of cables and youre not on the edge of the bridge so all the fears and uneasiness that can go with that hard on you are the more, your above, because your above the traffic you can enjoy the view in a way that you can on no other bridge. There had never been a bridge or a pedestrian walkway so designed and tragically theres never been one since and as you know now the engineers who designed the bridge, i think spend weeks, months, years studying how to put that railing at exactly the point so that when you go across in a car you cant see anything. [applause] but the engineers wrote in their original prospectus that the idea was that people could on a sunday afternoon or on a weekend day could go with your family or your boyfriend or your children and walk up out of the city. Of higher than youd ever been in your life because there werent many buildings that were more than about five stories, four or five stories. Hundred 19 feet above the river and is a river, a title straight. Thats saltwater with a big time, 4 to 60 there were sharks in the river in those days under the bridge and the rate is so high because it was the age of sale and the ships that were coming and going from the Brooklyn Navy yard upstream to be able to do so without trimming their top down chips as they had to do that is also beginning of the advent of the river could see all kinds of emotes, sailboats. Feel the fresh air. Enjoy yourself real of knowing that you work in your urine. You werent right for the quick or watching tv on cspan2 working with other program awardwinning historian. You are the class he century was to our and our people to be secular faith. Most people realize and unfortunately, a very large degree, it is a so often all know people who were involved particularly were years. The clothing of the time. The renditions of jefferson and washington and others in the meetings by Gilbert Stuart or Charles Wilson he. This theatrical quality to them. We dont see in bluegrass. We have no there was we can see, in the case of those thoughts in the war, we have no on the spot drawings by artist correspondents such as Winslow Homer who covered the civil war. So almost impossible to to people in the civil war for the First World War or other. Except for what they wrote area what they wrote and diaries and letters. And sometimes orderly books, records of one kind or another. And no more for autobiographies written after the fact. The newspaper coverage was nothing like we were there were no correspondents covering the war, no reportage coming back to be published in the by large no what they look. We can know they look in part because of deserter notices. When men deserted from the period over the other side, notices would be published in the papers or the before they were very. Because finding people. What comes through in those descriptions is the realization of how different from all of us theylook. Very few who fought with washington and marched with washington in seven 1776 wore uniforms. Even the officers rarelyhave full uniforms. Washington himself at a magnificent uniform as he felt it was part of his role as a leader to look like a leader, to look like a general. But the men in their ranks were wearing everything imaginable. And they were not supplied with replacements for what they wore so as the year wore on, their clothing became tattered, amended. Dirty, eventually in rags or worse than rags. The times themselves, the era in which they lived was so much harder than we understand. Like for someone in the 18th century even in peacetime was very difficult by our standards area very uncomfortable. Filled with danger, threats of disease. Filled with the possible accidents and physical that come from work. People were beat up by life more than we are in our time. There were no dentists, no cosmetic surgeons to say the least. So that someone with a severe childhood injury like Nathaniel Greene would walk the rest of hislife and accident that was readily corrected in our time. John trumbull whose works and in the capital, the signing of the declaration of independence , a magnificent painting of one of the most important scenes in our history when washington returned command of the army to the congress. Something no conquering general at ever done afterthe end of the revolutionary war. John trumbull only have the use of one i because of the childhood injury. Henry knox had part of one hand blown off in a hunting accident as a young man and on and on. People were missing teeth. They have to cash in their eyes or they had a way of holding their hand on their shoulder because of something that had happened to them. Life was dangerous, Difficult People were resilient, tough and strong to a degree that is something we too seldom forget. We in our time, we are softies. By contrast area we, its hard for us to imagine what it would be like to have sweeping epidemics dysentery or smallpox or typhus or typhoid through our town or city andtake the lives of hundreds of people all around us but it happened. And of course when the war came on the suffering and the tragedy and the grief, sorrow, it cant be measured with anyphysics. Abigail adams said generations who will reap the blessings will have no idea, little and kendall 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. 8 and a half year was also everybody proportionate to the population. 25,000 americans killed. To us, we have lived with the brutal statistics of the 20th and 21st centuries of war casualties and the suffering worldwide, 25,000 sound like a great deal area but 25,000 was one percent ofthe population of 2,500,000. And the revolutionary war today with our population, that would mean over 3 million. So in their time, it is a horrible war. And it is extremely costly to the people who stayed home and had to make do without their husband worked the farm or tobe the breadwinner for a family. Id like to just read you a little bit from some of these deserter notices. They are very. Very. People are immediately identifiable in a way that we are not used. Very much like the characters in the day. One George Reynolds of rhode island wasfive feet 9 and a half inches tall , 817. And carried his head something on his rifle. Thomas williams was an immigrant, and a free man he says that means he was from the old country, it wasnt an old man from the country. He was from ireland for wales or somewhere that time. He spoke good english but how the film in his left eye. David ralph, a saucy fellow was wearing a white coat, jacket andbreeches and ruffled shirts when last seen. Deserted eternal roosters regiment captain harveys company said in the sx is that, one simeon smith of greenfield, a joiner by trade. A thin spirit fellow fivefeet four inches high , had a blue coat and black vest. A middle button on hishat. Like long hair, black eyes. His voice and the hermaphrodite fashion. The masculine rather predominant. Likewise mattias smith, a small smart fellow, a sandler by trade. Ray headed, had a younger look in his face and is to say i swear, i swear and between his words will spit smart. Had on a green coat and an old red greatcoat red is not two coats, one red and one green is a gangster. Although he wears dumping of us overlook. Likewise john davey, along shoulder fellow shoemaker by trade. Draws his words and when comfortable says comfortable. He had on a green coat and thick leisure breaches, slim legs, lost some of his 40. And these men who are largely anonymous were the ones who went and did the hard marching and fighting marching and fighting again and again. Month after month. And who made the words and noble ideas of the declaration of independence more than just a declaration. More than just words on paper. And we celebrate the fourth of july we celebrate the great openings passages of the declaration of independence. We celebrate that all men are created equal, like , liberty and the pursuit of happiness. None of that would have been possible without the men who marched with washington through 1776 and beyond. And dont pitcher them as all heroes. They work. Hundreds deserted. Thousands deserted as time went on read thousands more went home when their enlistments were a. They only enlisted for a year and when the time came to go home, nothing , there was nothing to stop them and many of them just marched away. When washington was in retreat across new jersey and his army was down to rags many of the men were without shoes and winter was coming on and the british were coming on fast behind in force beyond anything that washington could even imagine , with soldiers were welltrained , well shot with good clothes and good equipment. When that was going on at one point , in december 2000, the enlistments were 2000 men came up and 2000 men away, went home with no shame. Washingtons army was down to 3000. All that were left. So in effect, quite literally we go what we have and who we are and all that we hold sacred to about 3000 men who would not quit. And that was because in part they were led by a man who would not quit. George washington was not a great intellectual like jefferson or adams or hamilton. He wasnt a brilliant speaker like his fellow virginian patrick henry. What George Washington was was a leader. He was a man of phenomenal courage, physical and moral courage. He was a man great talents in other people and give them a chance and two of the best men he picked he picked within abouttwo weeks after first meeting them. He thought they were the bestie had and they were the bestie had. Those two men, green and knocks with washington were the only general officers who stayed the entire length of the war, who did not leave, who would not quit. You are watching book tv on cspan2, were showing highlights from historian david any appearances. In 2017 he 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 about how history can inform us today. I was writing my book about Harriet Truman and i love the idea that he went for a walk every morning. I thought maybe i should try that. Browse away of tuning up your head, and your body. And you start thinking in a way you dont if youre not walking. So last summer when the comments being made by the republican candidate for the presidency were 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 and i started thinking about some of the speeches that i gave a national occasion such as the 200th anniversary of congress, the anniversary of the white house, kennedys Memorial Service in dallas, which i was asked to be the speaker. In commencement speeches and speeches i have given at particular occasions of importance to the history of other organizations and or universities. I found there were very many where i was voicing what really matters to me and why i think history is so fascinating and how essential i think it is as a means to enlarging the experience of being alive. Why should we limit our lives this little bit of time in our biological clocks when we can have access to the whole realm of the human story, going back hundreds of thousands of years. So i said take a look at each of these speeches might be appropriate and i had the help of my daughter who arranged all the talks that i gave into kept the records of what i said. When i read the book the first time, when i finished and put it down i thought he is writing and the times are picking the speeches because they might be to the current times. While, producing before, historians basically dont really have a role in talking about current policy. Buddys talking about current politics at the speeches. I was told you before current politics came on the scene. None of these speeches were written i went back and read them a second time thinking what is a sentence, whats the paragraph, what is the point hes trying to make that might be taken to heart by people who are in politics right now. So i went back and read it a second time, each time i was looking in the speech, what is the onepoint use trying to make that might be taken to heart by somebody who might be elected president. So let me pick out a few, i will not do each one but i think 12 out of 15 i found a pertinent point. Example one, for speech in the book from 1989, you quote margaret of maine who had the guts to rebuke joe mccarthy. She said i dont want to see the republican party, she was a republican from maine ride the political victory on the four horsemen of calumny, fear, ignorance, bigotry, and the smear. Smear is an interesting word, why did you think perhaps the hot applications of the current time. [laughter] you would be perfect if you only had a sense of humor. [laughter] can you imagine somebody reading that in the current political assignment and what would they like. Wouldnt it be wonderful. A republican to stand up and she did, shes a woman and in rare cases the woman senate at the planar history, most people today have no idea who margaret was, shes one of the most bravest most admiral political figures weve ever had. Not many republicans are standing up now . Not enough. 1998 quoting Benjamin Rush, not perhaps as wellknown as some other patriots of that time, one of the original signers of the declaration. Speaking of good nature that mattered most in human relations. He said and you quote him in the book, this is his quote, i include candor, gentleness in this position to speak with civility and listen with intention to everybody and then you added in 1998 in the speech, word to the wise then but perhaps in her own day more than ever. Indeed, Benjamin Rush is one of my favorite characters from our past and absolutely a remarkable man. A polymath of 18th century of someone who is interested in a most everything. He was accomplished physician, one of the first people to encourage the fair and humane treatment of people with Mental Illness and not to stop them away and the cell as if they were animals. He was extremely courageous in his ability to go into places where it was rampant, the yellow fever epidemic. He risked his life over and over. He was one of the signers of the declaration of independence when he signed and declaration of independence, he was 30 years old. We forget how young those people were, jefferson when he wrote the declaration of independence was 33. Imagine. Washington when he took command of the Continental Army was 44 years old. We see them later on with her white hair with their wigs and their amber lee statures and so forth. They were not that way then, they were very, very young. I think that is an encouraging part of our story. I dont think we can ever know enough about the American Revolution. By the way, the new museum of the American Revolution is just opening philadelphia is a must for all of us. It is marvelous and particularly its a place to take your children, your grandchildren to get them hooked on history. It is brilliant organized spectacular building by robert stern. Its right in the center of where the historic neighborhood is. Its only a few steps down the street from independence hall. We who lived in the boston area take reality of the miracle of that era as part of our environment, part of our world, that is getting great. But i love kennedys profiles, i read that when i was still young and not really aware of what i wanted to do with my life, i love his regard for John Quincy Adams for example. What i like and that quote, im not here to comment on anything but what i like so much on that quote is the word civility which is a lost art in the Public Discourse of America Today in the sense of comedy that existed among people who share a common goal and know that there needs to be a common in. It is gone. And you write that its been never lost, we had many instances with deep chasms of division in this country. But we come out of them. What will bring us out of this one, the two sides seem so unalterably opposed when politics trump policy. When the sense avon National Goal is gone and party goals matter more than National Goals. What brings us out of this . Leadership leadership of the best kind, leaders have the courage to stand up to their convictions who have the backbone to do whats 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, we talk about the three segments of government, the legislative, judicial and executive. But theres a fourth factor, the people, all of us and when we stand up and say, no more of this, we will take this anymore. When we stand up and say, theres a person right there who say the right thing and doing the right thing and will get behind her or him and make sure the attitude becomes decisive. Someone like margaret, the reason with margaret j smith, that is what im going to do. Somebody in the government right now, it will happen out of the necessity to survive and we will expect that. We are, i believe, you are right that were a nation, were basically a country where 30, 40, 50, 60 are in the middle and we want government to get something done. We aint doing it. That does not mean that we wont, we have come through very hard times, very baffling times, very pessimistic times and inappropriate behavior times in the part of our leadership. But we have come through the mall, very often when we come through them, the difficult times, they arent clouded sky times, when we do come through, were better off and better for having done it. People talk about, that was a simpler time back then, no it was not, things have never been so bad, so dark so promoting, 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, 1918, 19, 500,000 americans died of that disease, a disease they didnt know what it came from, they didnt know if it would go away or how to cure it. If that were to happen today, given the size of our populati population, 1,500,000 people would die in less than a year. Now imagine if that were on the nightly news every night and lets be more terrified, who would be next in her family to die. And just as the depression in the civil war, horrible horrible but we came through them. Because among other things, we had the faith that week would include. And because we understood that nothing of much consequences over accomplished alone has to be a joint effort, thats what they have to come back to understand. Are look at historians davids program from archive conclude with his recount of the pioneers who settled in the Northwest Territory. This event is from 2019 at the ohio state house in columbus. The big change, the big sudden revelation that here was something was when i eventually after i finish the wright brothers, i got down to marietta because i heard there was a collection of wonderful archival material in my assistant, mike hill who will be the greatest researcher in America Today and i saw this breathtaking collection, i knew we had opened king tuts tomb, let me just try to describe why it was thrilling. It is not just that there is so much of it, there are literally thousands, thousands of letters, diaries, memoirs, published journals, maps, data of all kinds, drawings and magnificent paintings. But its the quality of it all, the quality of the writing, the quality of the thinking, the quality of the honesty and expressing what they were brokenhearted about, what they were fearful of, how they were suffering and all the work that they had to do. In the onset of epidemic disease and the natural fiascoes and storms and earthquakes and all of it happening one after another, one year they almost starved to death. Compared to them, we are all a bunch of softies. Truly, i go on for hours about the lessons of history and why history is so beneficial, so important, so enlarging of life but i think two of the most important lessons to be learned, passed on to our children and grandchildren, the first is empathy, to put yourself in the other persons place to imagine what life mightve been like and what they went through. It is the same for people in our own time, you have to understand why other people feel as they do about things. Put yourself in their place, empathy, secondly gratitude. Gratitude for all the people do for our benefit or have done or did long ago, we should never take them for granted, we should never say thats the way it is. One of the things that we unfortunately do take for granted is the Public School system. Another thing, all men are created equal. Not just on paper, those two parts of our life, our National Life began here. First Public School system anywhere in the country, here in ohio, why did this happen, one man primarily. The northwest ordinance e, 1887 1787 states grew clearly, there will be public education, there will be complete freedom of religion. There will be attitude toward the native americans that is fundamentally respectful and decent and there will be no slavery, remember there was slaves and every one of the original 13 colonies. So it was all men are created equal but we have 150 slaves living in the slave quarters. No, it will not be that way in ohio. That was still primarily, if not to say entirely to Vanessa Cutler who wrote the ordinance into his son, Vanessa Cutler who was 18th century polymath, somebody who knew a lot about everything that was interested in everything. Vanessa was a doctor of law, medicine, all three at once and practice all three. He was probably i would say almost certainly, the leading american bot list of this day, he was an astronomer, use interested in languages, he is interested in everything, he believed in the important, the central necessity in the good life to learning and had a love of learning like very few americans were everybody ive come to know or read about. He never lived here, he came out to see how everything was going but he had too much going on back home in hamilton massachusetts which is north of boston. And his church and his parsonage are still there and very superb condition. The place where the first covered wagon left to come to ohio is still there. His son came out here with his wife and four children and their young and theyre hopeful and they know how to dress themselves the hard work but nothing, even the most difficult daily task of meeting of farmer in the rocky ground of new england was not going to be anything comparable to what they face here. They came out, on their way coming down the ohio river, two of their children died of disease. They had to be buried on the banks of the river where there was no settlement or in history imagine, they arrived here in mrs. Cutler stepped off the boat, the barge at one point and turned her ankle badly. He was suffering from disease himself when he arrived here. They knew no one and so they had to begin as everybody else had to buy hard work. We have no idea how hard those people work, night and day, every day. And all the children, men, women and all the children. Abram cutler had not had the education his father had because hed been raised by his grandparents who were farmers in connecticut. This is very important to keep in mind because of what he then did. Abram cutler, while i was asked in an interview the other day in ohio, what of all the scenes in my book, which do i wish i couldve been there to watch the first person and i knew right away. There was a big movement that came after election of thomas jefferson, the jeffersonians will call it because they did not have a party name the sometimes those of the republicans, they had decided they were going to get rid of the role but introduce slavery into ohio. They are leading the fight and the charge to stop that, to keep her from turning into a slave state. One was general who is a leader that came out to settle here along with cutler and the other one was him himself who is young at this point. He is absolutely devoted to stopping this change indicates quite ill and he could hardly get out of bed and there was even some question whether he would survive, live in the day, the vote was going to take place rufus came into the room, the boardinghouse room nearby and he was old enough to be his father, he came in and said cutler you must get well, be in your place or you will lose your favorite measure. According to one account, he and another man carried to the convention on a stretcher but there is no reliable evidence of this cutler himself said i went to the convention and moved to strike out the obnoxious 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. And it passed by a majority of one vote only. Because he had got up from his suffering and gone in their and voted, he was stopped and there would be no slavery, not just no slavery in ohio but all of Northwest Territory which included indiana, illinois, michigan and wisconsin. Imagine if slaves had been admitted, imagine what wouldve happened. There wouldve been no underground railroad, there wouldve been no harriet, uncle toms cam cabin, the most influential powerful novel ever written by any american. If this had been a slave, there wouldve been no Abraham Lincoln or u. S. S grant, the whole picture wouldve been different. This one man, one man who is not mentioned in any of the history books, he has been totally forgotten. So imagine the excitement that we felt that here were his letters, all of his private correspondence with his wife and others in the putnam collection alone was well over 1000 pieces. If you missed any of the Author Program with historian David Mccullough or want to watch them in their entirety, you can visit our website, booktv. Org, access the archive by using the search box at the top of the page searching david macola and book. On our Weekly Program after words, former Clinton Administration press secretary mike mccurry interviewed chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Carl about his time covering the trump administration. In this portion of the program he discusses the history of the phrase enemy of the people. Every one of those present complained about press coverage, every one of those president s thought the press focused on being way too negative, did not see the great accomplishments of the administration, that is Standard Operating Procedure but trumps attacks go far beyond any of that, literally give enemy of the people which is the phrase and i spent a little bit of time in the book about the origins of that phrase, it is very ugly phrase that has been used by stalin, hitler during the french revolution to justify the beheading. Talk of more about that, its one of the most interesting parts of the books, unpacking the phrase in you do that at some length in a couple of chapters and really go through an obnoxious phrase if you look back at the history of it. But talk about that a little bit. I spent time looking through the word gins of the phrase and it was used quite prominently during the french revolution, that is the most significant place people got beheaded as a result. Basically the justification, the people that were targeted to the law under which they were found guilty and beheaded, the actual law uses that phrase, enemy of the people and i go through and i talk you meant the use of it during the reign of terror when blood was falling in the streets of paris and then the other place, the next place i saw was in germany, the site they gave hitler his powers, i go back and i find this article that was an Associated Press article in the New York Times and many other newspapers around the world, right there in the lead paragraph and you see the nationalist socialist party making the case of anybody the votes against it of the enemy of the people. Yet the nasis using the phrase and then you see it a bit later used by joseph stalin. Im not saying that donald trump knew the history behind this phrase but it was certainly pointed out by a lot of people that it had this really dark and morbid and deadly history and he kept using it. To watch the rest of the program and to find other episodes of after words, visit our website booktv. Org and click on the after words tab near the top of the page. Welcome, thank you for joining us on her latest future tense social, this is very exciting for me because im a huge fan of his book. We all have to listen to churchill as we were warm enough to get into the mood. On the editorial director of future tense. Which is a collaboration between new america, freight magazine in Arizona State university and we look at the implications and impact of technology on society, im also professor and practice at the school of