Protecting america, it said a great deal about the man. Guest we cover that with his interactions with margaret t from Margaret Thatcher, gorbachev, the ultimate success of his policy toward the soviet union. We made that quite clear that the way he structured his administration, very successful and foreignpolicy. Host relationship with Margaret Thatcher you have some great stuff in here. They both were strong individuals. Guest we got that transcript of the Reagan Thatcher phone call they did not tell his best pal it was hanging out to dry peas he was telling her parliament the United States is not going to do this. And she lets him up on the phone call and we have the transcript. We lay out the whole thing which is why these books are so successful because people get the big picture. Now who was at reagans funeral into using the given him . Even though there was this detachment over granada they came back together again because they were both essentially of like minds and wanted freedom to override solitary and is. Host you spend a great deal of time on this. Guest it was reagans militaristic point of you sublimated and again this is the fascination. He didhe did not want the war. He opposed Margaret Thatcher fighting the argentines. He did not want it. How many times a day have you heard in your career a reagan was a warmonger . Did not want the war. Did not think it was worth it to do that. But then he invades were not up. Host american. Guest the communists were in granada. That is what led his views. The whole thing gives you what reagan really was. He was not a warmonger. Two leaders very much in line and in respect of one another that they did is best. And if it meant offending someone them in defending somebody. Guest he could have told her. Such a gooda good friend that she wouldve kept his confidence. If you read the pages of the transcript, really sheepish. So it is a pretty good they were both the same person, reagan and thatcher, they were the same person. We are going to get the bad guys and protect our nation. That is what bound them together. Host Margaret Thatcher was there and gave the eulogy at his funeral. It was beautiful. And you mentioned that. Of courseof course he wrote a letter to her, his last act as president. He wrote that letter about communism and how they pull this off. Did you find as we studied when he was president , did you find the depth humility . Lincolnton, reagan did. I dont know if you would describe them as of francis. I think that he had a confidence that he was right that he had a certain swagger to him when he addressed the world in the nation. I know what im doing. Im doing the right thing. Host the quality of the man was his humility. He had an enormous depth of humility. Guest i did not know Ronald Reagan. I covered his inauguration, but i do not no him. Host he had a black that im sure youre right about. Basically you can accomplish anything if you dont care who gets the credit. And you live by that. And i think that is probably one of the reasons they came across this country is a great person. But you are his cousin. A great aspect of the man, human being after he left office. Very much in high positions and demanding positions when they need those positions if they dont keep very busy mentally he leaves the office and he still very vibrant. He goes to mexico the fall from the horse that have the concussion. Talk about that a little bit. Do you think nancy may have hit something here . Guest i think so. All of those traumas accelerate whatever you have inside you in a hereditary kind of way. Again, was in our intent to be medical people . It was our attempt to show what happened. Happened. And to take you from a very historical point of you to tell people who lived during a reagan era like him and dont like him, i want everybody to read the book it was not a guy who did not care. He did not care about poor people of the Little People as minorities. Not true. His embrace of the free market system and that he believed if you allow american capitalism the freedom to prosper everyone will work who wants to come and that is exactly what happened. We show that pretty vividly. Two great successes were defeating the communist soviet union and reviving an economy that jimmy carter had destroyed. Destroyed. Both of those are superlative accomplishments, and we walk you through what it was. Reagan did not want to do the economy for him. He was interested in the folks. He did not like the fact that the folks were struggling to get jobs and had to wait on gas lines. Host and he would say he didnt. He would say that he believed in the people. He inspired in the greatness. Guest his policies allow the people to prosper. Host a good and decent man who had enormous humility, deeply religious, great courage of his convictions and strong and he went four and accomplished great things. I dont know that a case has been made that in any way the attempt on his life has caused a change in history, caused an eventual death of a president , for president to fail as a result. Guest i disagree withi disagree with you entirely. That is what is fun about reading killing reagan. You can have your view and i can have mine. If reagan had not been shot by John Hinckley junior they would not have been any oval office meeting. That never wouldve happened. Host how do you know . Guest he ran his governorship efficiently and there was no problem with him on the job there in his eight years. Very engaged and that his 1st weeks in the presidency he had a goal comeau was going to accomplish the goal and they get shot and then it all changed. That is what i believe. We document strongly. Feel free to have your opinion. Im not saying anything other than im glad you read the book, we are having this conversation. Host what new would you say the most significant aspect of Ronald Reagan for people who knew and loved him . Guest everyone will take something different. This is they did with jesus and patton and lincoln and kennedy. I get heat on all those folks. I did not say a killing jesus did not talk about spirituality or resurrection. Now going to get it, you did not make him a saint, canonize Ronald Reagan. No, i didnt. I laid out the man in a fair and methodical way, and entertaining way and the hit on themes i feel are important that people did not know about. There is a lot of new stuff in the book. It is entertaining to read. You can put it together yourself. We did a fair and balanced job. I am proud of the book and Ronald Reagan will like it. He is up in heaven and knows about the book. Host i have to disagree. As someone who love this man , i read the book and was delighted to think i would be able to read and talk to you about Ronald Reagan. Millions of americans have appreciation for his true greatness. He continues to inspire. I got the sense that you are undermining and demeaning his true greatness by throwing his stuff that is irrelevant to the and suggesting he was not really with it. He tells us all of the things he did. Guest i standi stand behind the book, no you are emotionally attached. I am not. I am an historian who writes in on this book. Nothing i say will be challenged because we can back it all up. The selection of what we have is debatable, but i did not set out to write saint Ronald Reagan. I set out to write here is a great president , here is what made him great. Here is what he overcame. An assassins bullet that almost took his life. It is a compelling dramatic story and we did a good job and im happy to talk to you about it. Host i am delighted and have to give the author the last word. It is good to be with you. I appreciate the time and look forward to the next one. Host it is going to be controversial. All my stuff is. I want to hear from the folks who read the book. Always a pleasure. Host nice to talk to you. Book tv is on facebook. Like us to get publishing news, scheduling updates, behindthescenes pictures and videos,videos, author information, and to talk directly with authors. Facebook. Com book tv. When the Vice President and his critics going off the deep end he asked, does it bug you when people refer to me as darth vader . She said no, it humanizes you. [applause] saturday night at 830 eastern an indepth look at policing and minority communities. Former st. Louis police officer, atlantic in Washington Dc Police chief. Most people get defensive if you are being offenses. Being respectful and requested, itsrequested, its not a crisis if it not a danger situation. They change the dynamics a little bit. Sunday afternoon race in the criminal justice system. At 630 portions of this years washington ideas festival speakers including mark warner, former Vice President al gore and other annemarie slaughter. We have to banish the word he is helping at home. Helping is not actually taking the burden off of you. You are still figuring out what needs to be done and asking him to help. He is not the agent. He is the assistant. If we are going to get where we need to go men need to be fully equal coparents. For the complete schedule go to cspan. Org. We are here with karl rove, the author of the triumph of William Mckinley. Mr. Rove was a Senior Advisor for president george w. Bush the architect of his election and reelection in 202,004. Uses watershed election the changes Party Political process in the nation. It is all here. The personalities into plot. A great read for historians, political junkies and in our own wild election cycle america. Now carl i will pay you for that later. Awfully generous. Host lets introduce the man. Who was William Mckinley and what does he want . Guest and the most immediate sense is the governor of the state of ohio and throughout his entire career in congress from 17 1876 to 1890 is become the lead voice within the Republican Party with a policy of protecting tariffs governor of the critical battleground state, no president is elected as a republican between the civil war in 1904 has not been born in the state of ohio. He is an immediate prospect. Host how big is ohio relative to other states . Guest the fourthlargest state in the union. Most populous is new york. Interestingly enough to have the states of inconsistent battleground states in the gilded age politics, new york and ohio. Pennsylvania and illinois tend to lean reliably republican. In 18921892 cleveland carries the state of illinois by about three Percentage Points defeating the incumbent. Host what are his ambitions . Guest he wants to become president. There is some evidence that it has been and ambition his entire adult life. When he gets married his bride from one of the founding families confides upon their return from their honeymoon in new york and washington with her husband who has just been defeated the county attorneys job must be president of the United States. And she is thrilled by the prospect. The Republican Party has been beaten in the 1892 election. Berkeley cleveland is coming to office. Mckinley has been the governor of ohio. They think the election is going to be theres command he wants to be the nominee, but he is not the font the front runner. Host the depression happens after cleveland is elected. Guest the seeds begin to be seen the previous fall , but he gets elected in november. By the time he takes office in march the economy is moving downward. And it is enormously damaging. Longlasting and deep depression literally 15 percent of American Workers lost their jobs in all likelihood. We dont have good Economic Statistics like we have now come over talking about hundreds of thousands tossed out of their jobs. And one day alone one county and upstate new york, 10,000 workers were lego. Host as bad as 2008 or worse . Guest worse in some respects because these were not selfinflicted wounds like we have on the American Economic system with fannie and freddie dragging down a financial institution. Some of these were large forces that we suffered suffer through because we were developing country. The american economy, we were terribly dependent upon foreign sources of investment to build factories, to open minds, to operate smelters to open and build railroads. What happened is a series of international events, the failure of the crop in argentina, the bank in london, these things caused Foreign Investors to pull back. That accelerated lavinia blamed is the cause of the recession. The decline in americas gold reserves. If you dip below that hundred Million Dollars level there is a concern of the american dollar will become basically worthless. We have Paper Currency but the Paper Currency was a matter of convenience. Rather than carrying around athe pocket of large gold coins you can carry around paper money or conduct your business and paper money. Host the economy is in the tank, the republicans are hungry and helpful. Who weather front runners . Guest the speaker of the house remain, and intellectual, the largest private library, 5,000 volumes, french tutor and in a classic wit. In the runup to the 1896 election he talked about the coming election and said the democratic losses will be so plentiful that the defeated will be buried in unmarked graves. He was the fellow who once said the party could do no worse. He had a great wit and was the candidate backed by the leading figures of the Republican Party where the combine them of the party bosses led by the boss of new york and his running buddy. They had allies around the country, an odd collection of characters including one of the principal agents, james clarkson, publisher of the Des Moines Register and he got the name because he apparently had atrocious handwriting and we always send an article a column and would put our et clarkson at the top because he was afraid they would not be able to decipher his handwriting. The most important of which is clarkson and the fellow named Joseph Manley who is an aid to read and maine. Has not been an ally. The intro party rival, the magnetic man who has been secretary of state. Host also maine. Guest two men who had been lifelong rivals, one is out of politics and dead by 1896. The other is the dominant role in state politics and picked up manley. Host what is the combines vision for winning the election . Guest 1st and foremost oriented to what is in it for me. Very pragmatic very pragmatic people. They think that can be figured out if the convention is chaotic and they get to hold the cards and make the decisions. They nominally pledge support to the front runner. Benjamin harris and the discredited former president is thought of as a candidate. His becoming a dominant figure. The other part of the strategy is to get lots of sons around the country will unite state delegations and only get together at the convention no one will have a majority. We can carve up the patronage some of them thought they could be candidates. So governor bradley of kentucky, border state republican, not as frequently seen thinks of himself as one. Senator davis of minnesota, an expert in foreignpolicy is flatter enough. Governor of the state of new york is put forward. He is a potentially plausible candidate, but his principal purpose is to keep every new york republican in the pocket. Even if you did not like the easy boss you have a loyalty to your governor. There are couple other candidates who are potentially feel candidates the most prominent of which is William Allison of iowa who is a workmanlike solid legislator who creates the interstate Commerce Commission and is actually a legislator who gets things done. But most of them are people who think they can be president but cant. The senior senator from the state of illinois, never makes it as far as the convention is put into field by the blonde boss. An interesting character. By John Riley Tanner the illinois Republican Party chairman fancies himself and does become governor. Host what is William Mckinley out for . Guest out to restore prosperity. His fervent belief is that the policy of protective tariffs he had advocated in congress for a great many years is the path to prosperity. His focus is the american worker. He wants robust domestic markets and protection from cheap foreign labor imports. They believe he is not a defender of high tariffs for the purpose of making rich people richer. When he passes the mckinley tariff of 1890 which helps contribute to the republican defeat in the house and is remembered by many republicans is the thing that brought them defeat, in the passage of that he was constantly asking people not how much do you need to get rich but how much does your industry need in order to be properly protected from unfair foreign competition . Economists agree and all likelihood the policies he advocated did not advance americas Economic Growth the out what it would have been otherwise, but it is hard to understand why people felt so strongly about it, and his whole vision was a nationalistic program of economic progress host what is your path to the nomination . What hurdles to you have to jump to get there . Guest that is an interesting question is this becomes the 1st modern president ial primary nomination ballot. Before 1896 in the parlance of the times you put your faith in the hands of your friends. You had someone on your behalf move around the country wasted far away from it as possible, get your state of a couple other states and friends around the country to rally to your cause but expected to go into the convention with a generalized sense there was a front runner and other candidates and then through this process someone emerged. And eventually everyone settled around making deals. In 1888 Benjamin Harris received a nomination after james g blaine, the front runner who is literally at Andrew Carnegies castle in scotland and on a sunday morning is reiterated that he is not a candidate and Benjamin Harrison becomes the front runner. He was born in ohio and is a former senator from the state of indiana and his agent makes a deal. Seemingly makes a deal with Thomas Collier plat that in return for the combine support that will be made secretary of treasury and receive all the customhouse patronage, the most valuable office in the country was the head of the customhouse, and this would ostensibly be his choice and all the patronage jobs connected would be connected to plat. Which could make him not only the secretary of treasury but the next president. The process we now have which begins in iowa in january, New Hampshire in february, it is starts before that, you are saying before 1896 it is all telescope at the convention. Guest and if you have got a favorite son, they gather together and unite behind him and instruct either by formally saying we are all for fill in the blank or by simply saying we are sending a delegation composed of sherman schism going to organize for the primary. Im going to identify it for my life said of the appliances. They wanted to become my agent. The object of it is systematically organize dominated by mckinley men who would not be concerned with who is on the delegation. The for him. Does not pick and choose who will be on the delegation but he picks people to embolden and authorize to organize the effort that culminates in a victory at the state convention, and he begins the process early. Most of the time the maneuvering begins late in the year before the election it happened in late 1895. More likely in early 1896. But hebut he begins it. You could make the argument because the country during the 1894 campaign traveling the country to spread his message of protectionism but he immediately begins in early 1895 to systematically organize and does so by going on vacation. Mark hanna has a place in palm beach. Misunderstood. We will come back to that later. A close friend of mckinley. Iron monger and coal magnet from cleveland ohio. And they had a good Distribution Company in Southeastern Ohio and moved to cleveland. He has a mind for business and he starts out the bottom working as a clerk, working as a delivery man but he rises for the management of his familys farm and when he marries into a wealthier family and cleveland takes over his fatherinlaws farm only financial failure that he ever said was is a young man almost loses everything. Forced to sell at a d to high school classmate. Host how did he and mckinley hook up . Guest they meet in 1876. It is involved in a very weird thing. Getting ready to make his 1st run. The minors dispute in eastern star county. The minors go on strike. They burn mines and be badly the superintendent of one of the mines in their own by the company the mark and i has. The rest and try them and no one can be found to defend them. Stepping forward in defending the minors and they dissolve one of them off. And then when they proceed to give him a 120 fee which is a big sum of money he refuses to see and contributed to the relief fund. Starting to create a lifelong reputation as a friend of the working man while the company that is pursuing charges owned by Hannah Callahan is sitting in the courtroom. He has hired the best law firm and we have this young lawyer who has been practicing law for basically ten or 11 years. But there is no recollection of it because he is suffering from an attack of the hives and is lathered up with sulfur ointment and is so hobbled they can only walk with a cane and is in constant pain and has no memory of meeting William Mckinley. They come together eight years later at the ohio state Republican Convention and mckinley over his objections is arrested as a delegate. He does not want to go to the National Convention. Hannah is worth senator john sherman of ohio. Mckinley does not want to opposes chief. Over his objection he is sent to the National Convention. First to encounter. In 1888 they go back to the Republican National convention and have a little bit of a semi rivalry going a 3rd ohio character has entered the scene, joseph p fire alarm foraker who runs for governor in 1885 and is defeated and gets elected in 1887. So when word gets out that there is a movement to draft him, he is sitting in a hotel room and he grabs an unused telegraph slip, write the comment on it, as it shares with anna says if this continues this is what im going to say. The next day a a delegate they start voting and a delegate from connecticut the texan says the delegation is ready and when this delegate from connecticut stands up and votes for mckinley rises on the floor, stance on the floor and then recites what he has written on the telegram which is, he does not want any want to consider him for presidency because he is committed by the convention of republicans in ohio and by his heart for john sherman for president. This would be a blight on his personal character. This is astonishing to anna. This is this is a man who could have swept the convention by standing aside and letting things go his way because clearly a lot of people second choice for president. Yet he says no. That he spent the next two days when the content convention is in recess, whenever he hears something is going to happen he shows up and says that no, dont do this. I would rather cut off my right arm them be the nominee of the party. I would deserve to lose. He wakes up in the middle of the night on sunday night and heres the next group some ohio delegates about how theyre going to get him nominated. In his nightclothes and he says stop it, dont do it. Anna is blown away by this willingness of him to step away from power. He is passionate about it. It it is a matter of character. He had committed to sherman and nothing would stand in the way. Host mckinley has another very important assistant ally from chicago. Guest well he is actually born in ohio, the graduation law school in cincinnati and heads west to make his living. Mckinley meets him sometime early in 1894 when dawes come to visit him in clumps ohio. If you run for president i want to help you. They. They meet again in october of 1894 when mckinley stops in lincoln nebraska for a Campaign Stop in the midterm. He sees a mckinley a man who is separate and apart from the politics. Mckinley is a man of enormous integrity. He is a man who man who is looking to the future. He is a key picker of talent. He is dawes who is a reformer like this. Dawes dawes is a young lawyer in lincoln, nebraska nebraska has taken on the railroads which he thinks are charging farmers to high price to get their goods to market. So he is a reformed republican and he likes reformed republicans like inlay. Mckinley he Practice Office in the same Small Office Building as a lawyer five years older than him. Members of the mens debate and reading club called the roundtable, the two of them had lunch with the rotc instructor at the university of nebraska, a west point lieutenant named john j persian. Dawes makes money in real estate banking deals and he decides he will become an entrepreneur and move to chicago. He does does that in january of 1895. What he is going to do is by gas utilities, get economies and make a lot of money. Host so mckinley has a new strategy for winning the nomination. He has this capable supporters, where does he want to take the party . Guest mckinley has begun to demonstrate is a different kind of republican. The republican is a party white anglosaxon. He realized our demography is becoming vastly different. Because of relatively fewer immigrants from england, scotland, wales, ireland, and germany. More from scandinavia, central central and eastern europe, we have portuguese, we have spanish tanners, i tell you craftsmans, ukrainian tailors, ukrainian tailors, the country is becoming very diverse demographically. Mckinley recognizes that. Many many people are catholic. The Republican Party has an inside a bias against catholics. It is the largest Pressure Group in the country which is an anti catholic, anti immigrant group founded in clinton, iowa. It passes a passes a scorecard out for the republicans for candidate and one of the questions is are they under the influence of the papal power. They are big. Its 13 million members. They are powerful. Host the biggest Catholic Group was Irish Catholic who had been democrats. Guest for a long time. Another group some some german catholics and some polish catholics. They hated the catholics. In 1891 hes getting ready to run for reelection for the governor of ohio. Mckinley has won by 20 some of thousand votes in ohio in 1891. There 60 some thousand members of the apa in ohio. The column up, on a friday and say there to Prison Guards you have to fire them, there catholic. Theyre working for the state, we found out there catholic and you need to fire them and replace them with protestants. We will call you back on monday. The call back on mende and mckinley said the men keep their jobs. As a result the apa drops mckinley from the ballot. They sent out instructions all the members and asked them to leave the governors race blank. Yet he wins by a bigger majority. In part because catholics take notice of it and to members of the catholic hierarchy in ohio traveled the state to parishes and say governor mckinley defended the job of two catholics. Host the Republican Party needs catholics and immigrants partly because they have lost it big chunk of the race. Guest thats correct. In the south of votes are black republicans and white republicans are being stolen by fraud, deception, or violence. In 1896 we had four states that had a black majority adult male population. The emmys black several voting in the south 95five yet mckinley does this mainly in the teens and low 20s and each of those states. Thats because you you take a look at the turnout in the north is 88 , 75, 88 in some states. In the south it runs in the mid 30s. The reason is because essentially from 1873 or four on theres a systematic effort to wipe out the black voting south. Host they said the ku klux klan would be an Armed Auxiliary guest they were. It wasnt just the client there is also groups in North Carolina and South Carolina they were redshirts in order to hide any blood. Theres no election that goes by without violence being perpetrated on a large scale, still tar first understand today on black voters in the cell. People getting routinely murdered for the simple exercise. Host was there any pushback against this nationally . Guest the there is an effort that mckinley champion, efforts to take away the remaining federal protections in the 1880s and mckinley was a strong opponent of it. After the republicans win the white house in 1888 henry lisa passing bill to provide perfections, they label at the force bill and it was defeated in the senate by a combination of republicans in the west who favored the bill but want to hold it hostage for legislation to create a free seven democrats. Host now lets turn to the Democratic Party. Who is contending for that now. Guest the nomination in 1896 starts in 1893 because as the economy deepens cleveland stands for the Gold Standard by cutting deals with wall street. Basically bailout the United States by buying bonds and transferring gold to the United States treasury. This makes him enormously unpopular the Democratic Party which has a large movement whose angry at the concentration of an food fueled by the demand for free and on limited coin. Host even though cleveland and is in a second term he can run again. Guest the cleveland democrats in cleveland will run again now, he does not want to. Some early point in the process he decides not to. No later than 1895 but he does not make that clear so there is no one allowed to emerge on that side because everyone is thinking well obama gold democratic cleveland will run. Democratic front runner for president is richer park bland of missouri. He enters congress and early 70s and become the leading proponent of free silver this inflationary current. Host wise it inflationary . Guest the idea would be that rather than setting as we do now a target for how we will expand the money supply by this percent, instead with free and unlimited coin would save you have a silver mine anywhere in the world you can show up at a u. S. Mint internet silver over and youll be paid 1 dollar and gold for every 16 units of silver, 16 to one. That will be coined and made into money and circulated. Now, the problem was the value of gold and silver fluctuated. At the time were talking and up until the 1896 the value of silver, dollars worth of gold would buy you 2 worth of silver. Another another words each dollar of silver was worth 52 cents in gold. So if you created a Silver Dollar it would have half the value it a goal dollar. Obviously bad money chases on good people. So hold onto the golden circulate circulates over and we would have inflation. Host but that is not bad for debtors. Guest not bad for debtors. The debtors in america in the 1890s are southern farmers who by and large, except for except for the big plantation owners or sharecroppers. What they do is tell their land but they do not have any money so they go to the furnishing merchant at the beginning of the season and he gives you all you need to live on and all you need to put out your crop and then you bring in the crop in the fall and he figures the value of an surprise, surprise, surprise, the value of your crop is less than the money he let you. So, another words each year you are getting a dollars deeper in debt. In the midwest, the farms in the medical are more lucrative. Many of them have mortgages. Theyre held by Specialized Companies or Insurance Companies, not by the normal banks and so forth. By the by special private banks, Insurance Companies or Mortgage Companies. While rented deflationary. The Interest Rate being charged by the Mortgage Companies are between eight and 14 . So you talk about people who are hardpressed. Its the people who have a mortgage, particularly in particularly in the south where the midwest. Host so you have gold faction which is led by the incumbent president , not clear what is going to happen what hes going to do when you have the champion of the silver force. Tell us what happens at the Democratic Convention. Guest in the runup to the Democratic Convention you have the state conventions of the silver democrats decide will not settle on a candidate. Will actively does discourage anyone from being a candidate. Will focus on two things, one it in each state to go on record in favor the free and unlimited coin is silver and refute so that when we get to the National Convention the democratic rules are it takes a majority to write the platform, two thirds thirds to dominate the kind of it. The silverman say we want to get a silver platform and force the candidate, whoever he he is to agree to that platform. We will never get to two thirds at the convention. Will not be able to nominate a true silverman about we want to bind it to a silver platform. They succeed beyond their expectation. Within the time the democratic commits and opens up they are within a whisper of getting two thirds. What stands in the way is an extraordinary pair of victories in michigan and minnesota. At the last minute, cleveland prevails upon political friends and his postmaster general in michigan and the former democratic man and minnesota step forward and make efforts to keep the delegations from falling to the silver heads. Both of the states are expected to go silver both end up going gold. Host close enough to two thirds so why doesnt graham walk into it. Guest because the goldman say we have more than one third of the delegates so what were going to do is hold onto the one third and use of her power and influence to pick between the two silverman the less objective silverman. This is all pretty conventional for the times because we shop at the convention, make a deal, and up and up on multiple ballots and settle the issue. They dont however, count on William Jennings bryan, or powell who conceives themselves as a president ial candidate. He is 3636 years old, the youngest man ever nominated by either Major Political party for president , to this day. Is also the only candidate i can find who thinks of himself as a candidate but nobody else does the day before he is nominated as a candidate. Host how does he swing it. Guest they go to the convention and the two front runners on the democratic set our silver dick bland of missouri and uncle horace boys of iowa. But there is a big battle over the platform. Everybody knows the platform issue is settled. Theres an overwhelming majority of silverman at the convention. How many votes does each side get and how does the argument play out. Its sort of the last stand of the convention. Bryan is chosen as the man in charge of closing in the debate on the floor and its completely by accident. There are six accidents that lead to him being selected. The six accidents which i detailed in the book happened and he ends up being the man thats in charge of the democrat the silver man. Shes generally thought to be the opening guy. The other principal speaker who wants to be the closer, but senator hill of new york who is the leader of the gold forces objects because he knows if tillman closes he will kick hill around. Hill objects. What it does it forces and make their final argument, tillman wants the longer time to speak to she takes the opening argument and closing 20 minutes over to whats supposed to be 30 minutes but get cuts to 20 minutes to william bryan. The final act occurs just before bryan is ready to speak, that is why the silver man opens the debate, gold man speaks, gold man speaks, a second gold man stands up. Tillmans speech is disgraceful. Insults every northern democrat. It isve just, he calls this a sectional argumentle and senator jones of arkansas stands up and says, well, i wore the color of the south. This is not a sectional argument. This is an argument of mankind. This is an argument thats one brief moment the silver man and the gold man stand together and making the argument, an argument because they hate tillman so much. They are one more speak tore give his speech and he is complaining about not having enough time. Bryan over hearsays to hill the leader ofom the fors, why donte give each side ten more minutes. The 30 minute speech is a brit aint piece of work that he delivers without a single note, having played out the final moments of it several days before had had a debate in nebraska. He gives the cross of gold speech and literally, when he finishes giving the speech, you shall not press down and he takes his hands, his head is out and chest is out and finishes and its complete silence. Drops his hands and steps down. And the atlanta constitution says the hall was silent with a few moments more and then place explodes. Men and women i jump to their feet. They stand t on chair and screa, they cheer, they wave anything atom hand. Thee demonstration has to be one of the greatest marvels of political convention. Nobody thinks is a candidate and no one thinks is a serious candidates makes him