Hello, my name is kai bird, from cuny, City University of new york. And were from the foundation to do events like this to promote the arts and crafts of biographies. And weve been a sponsor of the National Book festival for some yea years. Were here on a session off the 20th anniversary of the National Book festival and the theme this year is american ingenuity. Were going to be talking tonight with two notable public intellectuals. Harold holzer is one of the leading lincoln scholars. Currently the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at hunter college. Ted widmer, the author of eight books. Professor widmer is on the faculty of mccauleys honors college. Today well discuss his latest book, lincoln on the verge. A story about the 13day train journey that lincoln took from illinois to washington d. C. To be inaugurated as president. These are two very different books. Im going to hold up each of them. This is literally a mini biography, well, not so mini, its a substantial book, but focuses on 13 days and this is harold holzers book on the president versus the press. Theres very different books, but they are both about president s. And both authors are deeply with lincoln in the civil war era. To my mind, both folks actually have a theme, which is the notion that american politics has always been deeply partisan, contentious, and downright toxic, toxic. So ted, lets begin with you. You give us a vivid description of lincolns dangerous train journey, and at one point, you refer to it, to the toxic climate of 1860. So, i wanted to ask you right off the bat, is it worse today . [laughter] no. Its horrific today, worse in 1860. Its such an honor to appear with harold because he literally wrote the book on this period. Lincoln president elect was constantly on my book shelf as i was writing this new book and so hes read every newspaper and statement by lincoln in all of his contemporaries and ive read a lot of them, but i think that harold has read more of them and it was a nightmare. There was a presidency falling apart. The James Buchanan presidency which had not been especially distinguished even in the better years that preceded 1860, but it was having a strange kind of buchanan bernly was failing. He was having a lot of trouble making decisions and trying to please very angry southern members of his cabinet and then promising things that he couldnt really promise to the northerners who were getting upset about his southern promises, and the treasury didnt have very much money. There was mounting evidence of very serious financial corruption among his cabinet, but also the sending of armaments from northern forts and armiries to southern installations almost as if the civil war had begun although it hadnt yet begun and wild rumors in washington, militias who might take over the government buildings at any moment and lincoln was very far away without that much power to affect anything in washington. So as he got on that train, he really didnt know what he was going to find at the end of the journey or if he would even make it into washington and as i tried to show, it was a close call. He made it, but only barely. So turning to harold, why do you call, in your book, why do you refer to the endless battle between the white house and the media . Why is it an endless battle . I think all of our precedents go back to George Washington and even in the founding period when there was a distance between the president s and the press. No press conferences, no scrums, as washington was ready to board his helicopter to go to the golf course, no press secretaries, it was still a part of the print press that in a way resembled the television dichotomy between msnbc, say, and fox news or the extremes of liberal and rightwing media on the internet. So at the beginning washington established a special relationship with federalist journalists and editors who were friendly to his administration and his policies, and sort of to top anything that we hear about today about leaks that displaced the current president , George Washington had a cabinet member, thomas jefferson, who held the highest rank in the cabinet as secretary of state, who actually helped create an opposition newspaper in the capit capital, philadelphia at the time, and not only encouraged its creation, specifically that criticized the policies of George Washington, but gave its editor a job in the state department as a translator in order to help him make his way in the new city. He had to travel to philadelphia to set up shop. So, thats in a way, sets the example of president s being wary of and sometimes in open hostility against the press. We mentioned the inaugural journey of lincoln. Within six months of that inaugural journey, Abraham Lincoln as journey was encouraging the shutdown of pro Democratic Party and antirepublican and specifically antivolunteerism volunteering for the military newspapers. He was imprisoning editors without the rit of habeas corpus, closing down newspaper offices. So the antipathy, as i point out in my book and as ted said, not as bad as it was then, today the crackdowns and the complaints are nowhere near as bad under john adams, Abraham Lincoln, woodrow wilson, maybe, and maybe even fdr in some ways. So, lets keep with you for a moment, to followed up on that. Why did you have to writing so many books about lincoln, turn to this topic the press and the white house. Was it because of the Trump Presidency and his particularly hostile relationship with the press . Or did you start this book before trump was elected . I started it a bit before, i would say. But i had written a book about lincoln and his long relationship with the press, both as anonymous journalist for the press, as a manipulator of messages, as a master of technologies that helped him get his message across, and i think i was motivated, in a way, nostalgically by my own career, which is at least as circuitous as teds. I started right. 51 years ago, my first job was as a cub reporter and then a reporter and then an editor as the rest of the the real professional staff peeled away for want of money, of a weekly newspaper in new york, run by a very political guy who was very closely aligned to the kennedy family. And then i spent years in politics as a press secretary to political candidates. None of whom under my watch ever won an election, but thats another story. So, i have seen this from several angles and this just seemed like a natural subject to tackle, the origin of the pervasive contentiousness between the various peaks and valleys of the relationship. So, coming back to you, ted. You describe at one point in lincolns journey, you say that this is the first time a president had, quote, direct conversations with the voters, unscripted, this Media Standing by. Meaning the reporters were standing there witnessing these conversations that lincoln would have with people along the way on the Railroad Journey and then they would telegraph their accounts of these conversations to newspapers across the country. So, this is really the first time that there was like an instant press conference as such, right . I dont think thats too big a stretch, although i dont think anyone used the phrase press conference at the time, but it was a very volatile situation and lincoln upped stood very well, as harolds work has shown, just how powerful the press was. So, he had his antipathies and he got unbelievably frustrated and angry and he was also skillful at using the power of the press to his advantage and he knew that reporters were listening and there were reporters embedded on the train with him as hes coming from springfield to washington. Some very talented reporters. And sometimes they even helped him get his message out amid the very famous farewell address to springfield. I mean, he gave the speech and a few minutes later after the train started, a reporter named henry valard went to lincoln and the train was moving and asked him to write it out and theres a famous document in the library of congress, half of the speech written by lincoln in squiggly handwriting because the train was moving and he hand it had to his aide who finished it and gave it to valard to telegraphed it to the rest of the country and an extremely important speech of lincoln was made available wii the reporter, but he sometimes got angry and the message got distorted severely, sometimes reporters wrote things that were not true at all and while hes on this train, people in the south are writing the most hateful things they can think of about him and anything went in the southern papers at that time. All right. So, ted, how did you come to write this book . I understand it sort of emerged out of your work for the new york times, 13 days, 13 essays, can you tell us about . Sure, well, actually lucky. I had been a pretty academic historian and i thought of serious academic topics you could almost substitute the word tedious for serious. And this story crept up on me and i think it was a better story for that reason. And so i was working with some friends, some were historians and some were journalists who wanted to put the story of the civil war day by day into the online section of the new york times, at a time this was 2010 and 11 began when the online part was not considered that valuable and funny because 10 years later its very valuable. But at the time it was seen as sort of a less significant part of the papers real estate. So they gave us some space and it was all like virtual space so it didnt matter, we could write fairly long pieces and harold contributed to the series very meaningfully. As we all kind of spurred each other on and some of the writers were very good tellers of stories and i would not put myself in that category, but i was lifted up by their example and i liked how they were doing it. My friend adam goodhart, who harold also knows was writing beautifully in those early months so i was just looking ahead a little bit and i noticed that lincoln had the train trip coming, and so february 1861 is when it happened, so, february 2011 is when i was thinking about writing something and i pitched it to the editors of the times and they said, sure, go for it. So for 13 days in a row, i wrote essays about what happened on that day and i just really fell in love with the story. I had harolds book right on my desk then and i read the original newspaper accounts, some of which i read on the website at the library of congress. It was an i mmersive experience, adventure. And i had not found adventure in history until this project came along. Well, its a very vivid tale and i have to say i was surprised at your ability to tell the story with such suspense. I mean, i hadnt realized how dangerous the journey was. I hadnt realized there was, indeed, a very serious conspiracy to try to, perhaps prevent lincoln from getting to washington and it reads like a thriller at times. You really learn a lot of the history, but its very narrative driven. Well, i wrote a very long manuscript. And those who can relate to this since youre both such good historians. And i would have published it, but fortunately, alice mayhew jumped all over me and put me cut it and im glad she did. And she had died and i wrote it to her and having a great editor helped so much. Coming back to harold, why did you i mean, you actually have chapters devoted to any number of president s, not all of them. So you had to pick and choose. For instance, you dont write about eisenhower and truman. How can you pick out why did you pick out the president s to talk about their relationship with the press . In the process, i guess mike ted, in a World Without editors i might have written a twovolume book with a chapter for each of the president s because there are things to say and in the case here is what i decided to do, for the 19th 18th and 19th centuries i basically limited the chapters to those president s who had the most consequential impact on relationships between the presidency and the media, if i may call it that. So washington, obviously, because he set the tone for everyone, adams because he was as sour with the press as he was with his political enemies. I thought it was a remarkable story. Hes one of the great apostles of a free press famously sang if we had to choose between an effective government and free press we should always choose the press. But in effect was quite manipulative, quite denounced the tory about critical journalists and, in fact, while the opposed the sedition law he did so only because he didnt believe the federal government had many rights in terms of laws that superseded state law. He was also prosecuting the press at the state level for libel and is quite enthusiastic about that. He commissioned a journalist to write pro republican articles and then when he refused to reward calendar with a small federal job, calendar turned on him and published that Sally Hemmings story that did more to hot his reputation than anything. Heart. I chose the most controversial ones, jackson, made them speechwriters, advises, Kitchen Cabinet members. Lincoln produce reasons. And and i try to get almost allf the 20th century president s if i could. I left out exciting folks like coolidge and harding and hoover, although hoover held quite a few press conferences. The press just didnt like they had to submit them in advance. Wilson invented press conferences, invented widescae Administration Propaganda during world war i. Teddy roosevelt who preceded him was, invented the informal back of the white house interview while he was being shaved in the white house. Then i included president s who revolutionized communications in their ability to bypass the the press and speak directly to the people by utilizing cuttingedge technology. The most obvious ones and the one i dealt with in detail were Franklin Roosevelt who used the radio so brilliantly but also and less acknowledged he also used newsreels. He was the second or third future at the movie in some of the most popular days of the movies. His first radio address as president elect was also a highlight in movies during the time when i of the fugitive from the chain gang was showing. Revealing the depth of the depression and the sadness of it. And then kennedy for television. Barack obama for choosing the internet over personal relations with the press which i, it on, i think people might be surprised about how obama emerges in my book. Indeed i state the obvious that for all of his flaws and no matter what your position about his politics or his leadership abilities, donald trump ranks with kennedy and Franklin Roosevelts and barack obama as a genius of a particular form of communication, twitter. Its extraordinary not only the volume and the intensity of the communication, but his uncanny ability to direct the duty of the day with a morning tweet. And the sheep like ability or inability of the press to do anything but followed his lead during the day. Franklin roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and obama and now maybe i should add trump, given what you just said, which of those do you think were most effective at manipulating the press . Franklin roosevelts who befriended them ingeniously, who got them to ignore and not write about or photograph his disability. Through what began as a gentlemans amendment because journalists and photographers simply like the guy. And ended with unchallenged white house rules about taking informal photographs of roosevelt in his wheelchair, even taking unflattering photographs so he was able to censor, his administration was able to censor while he remained the good guy. He held 998 press conferences in his 12 years and six weeks as president , so he was remarkably transparent about the wheels of government and decisionmaking, although many things were off the record, reporters were able to ask, to make them on the record. He often did that. So i would say also thirtysomething fireside chats, which were such a pervasive part of the culture in the 30s and 40s that saul bellow remembered walking in chicago on a hot summer day during a traffic jam and hearing a continuous fireside chat from open car window to open car window without interruption. The roosevelt was everywhere, and he think he was a great genius of communication, out there in yet being somewhat secret and successful. Along the way you in your story talk about how the press in their coverage of the lincoln for sort of humanized him for the first time. This is of course at a very delicate moment when he is trying to get washington to be inaugurated and its on the verge of what we know becomes a civil war. Lincoln is like he suddenly becomes flesh and blood. The press doesnt this. Can you describe how this happened . I agree. First of all the curiosity about him was, i would say, larger than that, that it followed any president on his way into office. It was overwhelming. Lincoln had, almost out of nowhere, not quite nowhere because the lincolndouglas debates had raised his profile in illinois, certainly and even in east and with the Cooper Union Speech which harold has written about, his profile went up a little more but he was still an outside shot at the nomination, which he got in may of 1860. I think if that nominating convention had not happened in chicago his chances wouldve been much less. And when he got it and they do and realize he had beaten all these more established candidates, William Stewart especially, it was just a tremendous curiosity. Go easy . What does it look like . What does he think . What is his home like . His home appears in print weekly newspapers in new york are beginning to begin illustrations, and thats important. Lincoln is a kind of political celebrity, and that word was being used. It had been used in some of the context in the 1850s and then suddenly the biggest celebrity that america has ever known is getting on a train to come to the capital to take charge of the government that is falling apart. All of these things, the fear, the excitement, the hope, and the criticism, he got all of t and every newspaper in the story wanted to cover it. There were tens of thousands of i mean, this was a very literate society, especially in the north and the upper midwest. And so if the train was bringing lincoln within any reasonable distance of a a small newspaper bigger newspaper, all the reporters weather watch as he came through and were a lot of wonderful physical descriptions of a guy who was unusual looking. Not only for his height but his face that changed its moods quickly from a twinkle in the eye when he was about to tell a joke to a deep kind of melancholy expression all within a few seconds and back. And all the strange ways in which he spoke. He spoke, he had a western and somewhat southern accent. He had mostly grown up in Southern Indiana and he sounded like it, so to new york audiences he sounded twangy and rustic. But is capable of all, just hs face is capable of different expressions. His words were also. He could write something very seriously, looking into fortunes of the problem of slavery in the United States government. Thats the cooper union address, but he could give any speeches. He ran out of material. He had written about one serious speech per day and he had to get many more speeches than that so we had improvised, and there are moments when its almost like standup comedy was just up there saying whatever comes in is it an easy quick thinker. The journalists convey that to a huge northern audience hanging on every word. Talk a little bit about the conspiracy. Again, this is not my period of history, but i was really shocked by how serious the conspiracy, and harold, you might jump in and i assume youve written a livid about the early conspiracy, too. I did write about the conspiracy in my book, and i thought i backed up the historical understanding of when lincoln and his aides might have become aware of it. Ted backed it up even further and really made some terrific discoveries about how, why this trip was so dangerous, almost from the minute he left, strengthen. Andy did a terrific job with that. I just wanted to say that, te, before you expel. Thank you. Dont forget, did you write about this. Dont forget hes also growing a beard on this trip so he was thats a great point. Thats a remarkable change in the way he looked. Americans barely know in any way and bennys really changing dramatically the way his face looks. A lot is happening, almost like he is girding himself for battle, which i think or hiding himself from the danger. Right. But kai, the conspiracy has been known. Theres a great book from the early 1950s, lincoln and the baltimore plot, she is a lot of material at the Huntington Library but pinkerton, allan pinkerton, the famous railroad detective, sort of found of what becomes the secret service, wrote multiple versions of all of this. There were some controversies, other people in lincolns entourage also claim that the new different things, but it was known even in the 1860s. It was known that he had passed through something very dangerous, that i was surprised as a look more deeply into it that most people i talked to new rotatable about it. Harold serving everything about it, but it wasnt really in the general knowledge. I found it somewhat uplifting, because we all know the tragic end up lincolns presidency and of his life, but the nearness of his escape from death in 1861 allowed me to realize we got four years of an extremely consequential presidency and if we hadnt gotten those four years might very well be two countries instead of one right now. Right. So harold, coming back to you, im curious, how is the Research Process different for this book than from your previous work . I have seen you interview Newt Gingrich and you got bill clinton to i guess answer written questions. But i bet any doing some of the famous reporters was a lot of fun, too. I think the obvious dimwit for me was i i had never writtn anything about living people before, at least not in a book, and so this opened new possibilities and was a little bit scary. I did ask several expresident to discuss things but the only one who did, and happy to report, was president clinton. And also spoke to a number of journalists. I think i had the last interview with jim layer speeders we will be the last few minutes of this event to keep our 40 your commitment to congressional coverage and you can continue watching this event at her website