Transcripts For CSPAN2 Richard Carwardine Discusses Lincolns Sense Of Humor 20170419

Between the society and the George Washington university, the Library First Research Facility in the nations capitol devoted to the study of winston churchill. Here students and visitors have access to a vast range of primary and secondary materials and interactive exhibits and soon displays of original manuscripts and artifacts. Let me take this opportunity to encourage you to join the International Churchill society by visiting our website. Www. Wintonchurchhiil www. Wintonchurchill. Org. A few programming notes before turning to the subject of the evening. I hope you will return on march 1st when elliot cohen discusses this new book, the big stick; the limits of soft powquer the nutesty of military force. And on april 26th, we will welcome david owens, now lord owens, who will speak about this new book cabinets finest hour; the hidden agenda of may 1940. In our programming at the library we will explore the life and career and very nature of leadership itself for churchill. And just as churchill decribed the last sentence like so Aberham Lincoln disrobed the 19th. The two men were very different. One born in a palace and the other in a log cabin. Each was marked by a magnificen magnificence sense of humor. Perhaps the inability to see the humor in things makes one more likely to forgive others. Examples of churchills humor and whit abound related to the famed and exagurated personal. Churchill replied i have been looking for a drink like that all my life. On another occasion, churchill was colded by a female pm who declare winston, you are drunk. And he replied yes, and you are ugly but tomorrow i shall be sober. Lincolns humor tended more toward self deprication. He related a town of a woman that looked at him and exclaimed i do believe you are the ugliest person i ever saw. Lincoln apologized but then asked what she wanted him do to about it . She thought for a minute and said you might stay home. During the debates in illinois, a spectator shouted lincoln was being two faced. Two faced lincoln claimed . If i had two faces you think i would chose this one . Lincoln senior was an essential component of the personality. Richard carwardine was educated at Corpus Christi and Queen College oxford and at the university of california berkeley. For three decades he caught history at the university of helpfield before being appointed rose professor of American History and institutions at oxford university. And a fellow of saint kathryns college. He was elected president of Corpus Christi Oxford College until 2010. He is the author of lincoln a life of purpose and power which was awarded the lincoln pride in 2007. And he is also written the upcoming lincolns sense of humor on which tonights lecture is based. This year marks the 500th anniversary of Corpus Christi featuring the colleges ma manuscript treasury. Ladies and gentlemen, professor richard carwardine. [applause] thank you very much for that. Along the displays in 1864 was an exhibit labeled the two american humorists. One of the two was dan rice. As it appeared in his great speech in medical opportunities in philadelphia and i dont know what he was lecturing on but we have no record of how much benefit the medical students took from these talks. The other was of Abraham Lincoln. He was the first president consistently to make story telling and laughter tools of the audience. No occupant since the white house matched his talent in this respect not because of the reputation but too much popularity has been deemed harmful. He was judged my admires to be undignified. John f kennedy even held back for fear of appearing unstatesmanlike. He was open to the charge that human was substitute for fault. Since he was willing to do anything for loss, this was considered a further routine. Lincoln suffered few such inhibitions. Humor was central to lincolns being. In this talk, i analyzed what made him laugh and the purposes and uses to which he put jokes and stories. At one end of the spectrum, he grew pleasure from tall tales, absurdity and larger than life characters. There is no simple taxonmy of lincolns humor but he appreciated a variety of other forms and happily took place in quick whit, irony, satire and dirty jokes and stories. What was successful and effective was he knew as michael was just explained he had to win over the audience by laughing at themselves. Lincoln possessed astro since of awareness and was able to take a joke joining in the upmost nature. He made much of his appearance. Conscious of his very unusual proportion and his unusually long limbs with very long legs and arms. Aware many considered him an ugly man he faced that headon casting himself as the subject of the story he related to an encounter with a stranger in a rail road card and he said excue me. I have an article that belongs to you. The man explains this was placed in my hands some years ago with the injunction i was to keep it until i found a man uglier than myself. Allow me to say i think you are entitled to the property. Lincoln also gave rise to looking down the gun barrel of a passer by who explained that and i quote he had promised to shoot the first man who was uglier than himself. Lincoln remarked having bared this chest if i am ugly than fire away. Lincoln loved the absurd and loved tall tales. According noah books he thought to chief characteristic of american human was grotesqueness and loved the story of bill, who was a drunk who got catastrophically intoxicated on a day of heavy rain and staggered down an alley and fell asleep in a pile of mud. He sought out a pump for watch hichlicism off and himself. He gave himself a thorough washing and made himself to the grocery. As he entered, one of his comrades horrified by what in the world is a matter . My goo god you ought to have seen be before i was washed. It was no surprise lincoln celebrated the craftsman ship, energy and color of his pros, they should have loved the humorous possibilities and cu curiosity of the english language. In discovering particular usages and the meanings of word, he smiled as he put it the dutchmans expression of somebody tying his dog loose. He smilingly told the busy operators thathat since it was a fast day he was happy to see them working so fast. He used this in an opposing way prove an alibi had lincoln shooting back i are no doubt you can bring a man to prove an alibi. They are deined to elicit gun owners and this may well rb lincolns aim when he said to see it and saw it as they were up in washington for tr strong. Tr strong. The coffee are stronger. Asa selftaught, lincolns particular pleasure was relishing the story of john moore, an Illinois State treasurer who was returning home in hiberated and one of the cars stuck a stump and through the pole out of the ring of theioletheiol yolk. He aaroused himself in the morning and he said my name is john moore. I lost a group of steers. If my name isnt john moore, i found a cot. And lincoln attended a meeting at the lunetic asylum and it was a cheerly building and lincoln made a hat. As lincoln made his way along, a little lunetic darted outside from the door and explained sir, i am shocked you wear your hat in the presence of Christopher Columbus. And i beg your pardon, mr. Columbus, lincoln replied and removed his house and walked on. Later at the meeting with his hat back on his head, lincoln met the man again. Sir, i am acetacetastouned you wear your house in the presence of washington. He said excuse me but you said you were Christopher Columbus an hour and a half ago. And he said yes, that was by another mother. Lincoln said humor laughs with everybody and i think it is okay to say that wasnt his represented mote of humor. The truth was that lincoln had a capacity for deb statingly quick quit whit. When it was observed edward baits had black hair and a white beard lincoln thought it could be otherwise and uses his jaws more than his brain. One day a delegation called on lincoln, this is shortly after lincoln takes office and the delegation called to urge the appointment of the friend of theirs to the post of the commissionary in hawaii. And they empathize not only his fitness for the post but his poor health when they had wld benefit from the balmy climate of hawaii. The president closed the interview with affected regret. Gentlemen, i am sorry to say but there are eight other applicants for that place and they are all thicker than your man. Lincoln enjoyed the dry, ironic and oblique whit he had in others. This was the case for instance with the farmer. I aint greedy about land. I only want what joins mine. He used dry whit to deflect arrogance to a young inaudible who desired and made much of the distingui distinguished linage. More gentle was he was exceeding looking for a job. The lady said she has two sons who want to work. That is possible. One to work and so rare a meritt it should be encouraged. Many and as most of the stories lincoln told, as acquaintances put it politely would not be for the drawing room. With when knocked upon by his family, friends and colleagues lincoln went off by who you not write out your stories and put them in a book . About a thousand dead cockatiels and a million why shooting in the nostrils and said such a book would sting. It wasnt the crudity lincoln loved. But his emodest stories were more offensive to the victorians. There was a collection about an old lady and a dress she wore during the revolutionary war and he visited her and asked her to produce the desk. She did so and this was the dress he said of a lady during the time of washington. The unimpressed owner remarked stranger, if you want to kiss something old , you better kiss my ass. It is 60 years older than that dress. Persistently asked by chase who was seen standing next to a wall up in an alley what he had been doing, he caved in and said, well to tell the truth, i went up that alley to shake hands with a fellow i used to know who stood up for me at my wedding. And the tie and evening gowned gown was taken and answered by an act of congress. Her husband opened the letter, considered the paragraph and inscription and said that is a lie. She was never entered by an act of congress. Lincoln took great pleasure in satire. He engaged in occasionally reckless personal attacks to anobmous lampoons in particular townships and salts on yamz shields, state James Shields state office. It led to a deal which was aborted only at the last minute. After that lincoln exercised much more control in private. Among his loyer friends, he would entail an argument that was disagreeable and lost none of his appetite for others including the shake peer openings of the genius of the grotesque relationships. But the lincoln cruelty and malace were carefully constructed passages in longer speeches. Mostly in the 1850s. Faced with the charge that the opposition to slavery meant for the quality of the races, lincoln mocked douglas logic. He declared in cheers and laughter i do not under because i dont want a negro for a slave i dont want her for my a wife. I have never had the apprehension i or my friends would marry negros if there was no law to keep from it. What is the utility . What was the purpose . It provided a means of impairment and imposing itself on others. It acts as a Health Giving salve. Lincolns appetite for humor and vulnerability to depression were two sides of the same coin. Laughter was a therapeutic antidote to the low spirits for which he was prone. Lincoln explained if it were not for those stories and jokes i should die. In september, 1862 he unveiled a preliminary proclamation. Colleagues were irritated. Why did you laugh with the fearful strain that is upon me night and day if i did not laugh i should die. There was a broader question. What political and public royal did lincolns humor play and here the picture. In retrospect, it was a productive strength but there were unintended consequences. Lincolns representation as humorist functioned as a weapon used against him. Humor could be a double edged sword. Lincolns story telling made him a welcoming appearing. His physical awkwardness seemed not to have troubled him. He had a strong sense of his self worth. Lincoln relished the role of entertainer and was invigorated by it. In his debates in 1858 with douglas, he grew stronger in spirit and body over the course of the campaign in contrast to his opponent. He didnt poses the active ease of movement but he had a gift for squeezing the most humor out of his material and getting to the climax of a story. He had the competance on how to deliver a line to prompt the last line lincoln knew was there. Later in life, lincoln repeated with the friction on a type of southwest as an orter who threw back his head, shined his eyes, and opened his mouth and left the consequences to god. In short contrast, there was little in lincolns own speeches that was not planned and well calculated. The humor in public addresses and private conversations was rarely lacking or designed to cover up. When emphasizing touch, it was a way of planting a self serving idea into the mind of his peers. It provided a role in relation to public moral. Above all, he used stories as a political form of explanation. His crushing of opponents as an expiring politician, lincoln eviscerated them and humilaiate them. Lincoln used power to hurt and wither in effect. This helped him get reelected to the state legislature when she spoke before a large crowd in springfield and prompted a response from a prominent local democrat that he should be given the stand. Forker was a recent convert from the whig party. 50 years senior, they declared he acknowledged he was young but his critic should i quote i am older than i am in the tricks and trade of politicians. I desire to live and i would rather die now than live to see the gentlemen for the day i would change my politics for an office worth 3,000 a year and compelled to elect a lightning rod from an offending god. Overtime, lincoln was more subtle in sharpening his debating edge as a mature politician he used gentle ways to put his opponents on the back foot. He confessed there is one thing however in which i stand constantly in dread. When lincoln begins to tell a story i begin to get apprehensive. Every story seems like a wack upon buyback my back. Nothing else disturbs me but when he begins to tell a story i feel i am about to be overmatch overmatched. It encouraged Common People to see him as a natural man, able to engage with ordinary farmers and with labors on equal terms. His life long identification was closely aligned to self deprication. This amounted to far more of a means of securing a laugh by committing jokes about his strange looks but it was a means of enlisting the audience on the size of the underdog. He used the big man little man technique and did it more or less nonstop three prepresident ial years. Again, the biggest beasts in the democracy. In his wrestling with douglas, he said he was a great man but lincoln was only a small man. They decided to cover the joint debates with douglas and sheltering together during sheltering together one evening during a thunderstorms, lincoln tells a young reporter when he was clerking in a store his highest ambition was to be a member of the state legislature and he continued with a chuckled since then i have grown but my friends got me into this. I didnt consider myself qualified for the United States senate. I am convinced i am good enough but in spite of it all it is too big of a thing for you. You will never get it. Mary insists i am going to be senator and president of the United States too. Such a sucker as me as president , lincoln laughed but his intent was actually serious. He would tell stories, cover opponents, they were ridiculed and laughter. He smoothed the conversation without giving offense. He recognized the sharpness of refusal or rebuke maybe be blunted by an appropriate story. His secretary, john hey, told in 1863, an internal nuisance of a book and post master with his eyes on the following years president ial election and wondering if lincoln was going to run again fastened himself and tried to get into conversation on the subject of the secession. A creature requested the venue for a religious lecture. What is it about, said jessy . The Second Coming of christ, said the person. Nonsense, roared uncle jessie. If christ went to springfield with got away he would fear coming again. Above all else, lincolns stories served as a colorful mean of instruction and ilucidation. They say i tell a great many stories. I found in the course of long experience, Common People, take them as they run are more easily influenced and filmed for the region of broad illustration than in any other way. Lincoln uses stories as parables. They exposed the fourth logical opposing council and said he was united and having trouble closing up a barrel and put a boy inside to hold the head in place. The plan worked so well they drove on the hoops and forgot about the boy and how he was to get out. They drove him engaging economies and john pope telegraphed washington that he had captured 5,000 of beuregards men the cabinet asked the president for his opinion. The doctor came and prescribed some medicine for her constipation. Returning the next normal he found her fresh and getting well and breakfast. She confirmed the medicine had worked. How many bowl movements . 102. I know you are joking. How many . 142. You could not have had 142. It is necessary to have the exact number of movements. 142. Lincoln added i am afraid popes catches are 140 of them but closed the discussion. During a critical phase of the affair, and you recall the affair doesnt threaten the war following the union navy seizure for the ships. During this time, lincoln found himself with supporters only one member of the cabinet. He said it reminded him of a drunk who strayed in an Illinois Church into the front row. He stumbled on and the survivalist asked who are on the lord side and the congregation responded. And then when preacher said who are on the devil side, the man stood up and said i dont understand the question exactly. The last time you pardon for the last. It seems to me you are in a hopeless minority. It showed how an occupant of the white house and the president and supporters had a habit of telling ludicrous stories enter a larger appreciation of his character. Lincolns private secretary john hey had a warm relationship with several journalists. Lincolns humor helped cast him as a representative american. The ladies were repelled by the president s jokes. She wrote as a race we are intelligent and lincoln recognizes our attainment and has never written a letter constituents cant understand. He knew how to tell a simple constructive story. Commercial interest exploited this benign question was what could be more than the fine old full flavor joke . Accepting the green backs showed the entertaining a whacked audience of smiling common folk. William bryants radical new york evening post offered a commentary on a wide array of lincolns jokes to show these were the remarks of a general wise commander in chief. They found relief in the appropriate and the buns brought innocent delight but stories were a means of rebuke to those who wasted his time with trivial requests. The values and benefits of lincolns story tellers, reporters were reporting to the disdain for the taste in jokes made him in fit. Democrats beerated lincoln for jokes during the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 and from the moment of the nomination in 1860 the presses ridiculed the campaign except he runs through oxens and went barefooted and tells a story in good styles and is the ugliest man in the west. On the evening of his inauguration, a mary man was presented holding a drain in his hand while engaged in a Lively Exchange of humor with enibriated companions passed by. Confedera confederates in the war used his humor to beat him. A sympathizer grew lincoln as a gesture in the comedy of death sharing the stage with n array of toy soldiers resembling the unions high command. The president s appetite for low jokes showed a lack of professionalal and his jokes measured his cruel disregard for the victims of war. Lincoln the heartless buffoon became a reoccurring theme. The press was quick to circulate this. Columbia confronts her children was the magazine title. Published shortly after the fredricksburg. You can see a female figure with her arm stretched pointing at lincoln, standing outside the War Department between Edward Stanton and hooker and asking where are my 15,000 sons murdered at fredricksburg. Ladies and gentlemen, he announces, i regret to say the tragedy entitled the army of the potomac has been withdrawn. Further common acquisitions with lincoln and the buffoon was the fanatic who endulged in sadistic humor to policies. These were cruel and unfunny jokes played by a tyrant who took pleasure in his disregard to the constitution. Emancipation, the suspension of habeas corpus, the draft, reconstruction, military rules, and the policies associated with the prosecution of a hard war were evidence of this warped sense of humor. Disgusted by the president s racial policy, trump told him to quote crack your low jokes, madam lincoln, only white men. Let me turn to the campaign of 1864, the National Joker in the white house complaint was a condemnation during the reelection year. The themes of the argument didnt alter the opposition and platforms gave them mere aggression and color than ever. It was explicitly joined in the opening weeks of the year. Bryants positive appreciation of the humor i mentioned a moment ago in the pages from the evening pose, drew from bennett, the herald, and the headline the president ial campaign the first election document. The claim it was the first document was teasing and diseng disengen genuine. With news among the republicans to deliver the partys nomination, bennett ran a long article taking the president ial field not a smutty joker setting out the generals claims as a military leader and emancipator the statements in the herald were followed with the repeated 30 times over is not a smutty joker. Bennett wanted the party to chose the jen olor two other candida candidate. In the funniest of fun and harpers weekly, the radical cartoonists cast lincoln as the nationalal joker, a circus gesture who was reminded of another joke and story. He stands grinning and the three war time scenes are hospital, battlefield, and liberty consumed by frames each pointing the grotesque contrast between unprecedentedal levity and marshall horror. Setting the tone for the piece democrats assault on lincoln was the striking front cover of andrew and there is actually a typo there. Lincoln honor. Into their Campaign Themes and the administrations radical islamism and its tyrannical assault on Civil Liberties and generally demoralizing influence. None was more challenging than the military slaughter. The chicago times never slowed to manufacture a story that the campaign in virginia had a conclave the bottle went fully around and the anecdote and the smutty joke followed itself in quick succession. He has the little jokes and stories and became a Democrat Campaign staple. Nothing gave greater power than when visiting the Antietam Battlefield in october 1862 lincoln had shadowed by asking about a comic song while touring the field. According to the new york world of the incidents took place after the fight with bodies left one in their graves accompanied by George Mcclellan and another officer lincoln drove over where they were burying the dead and the bodies were piled high and lincoln was slipping him upon the knee telling him give us that song. He never heard it and with a shudder he said not now i would prefer he hear its another place and time. The story in its various forms failed to emphasize lincolns taste for the song. A popular banjo song performed by black face musicals come from his racial appetite. Democrats hammer in the message and music and graphic satire as described in the Democratic National campaign he may crack his jokes or stricken battle but die like butchered cattle the guns grow cold. Your name is linked with all of our brightest glories. The campaign gave them the opportunity to exploit the familiar theme of the compulsive jesting and the lithograph colombia denounced sorry, go back one. Too much. There we go. Angry columbia shouts mr. Lincoln gave m give me backy 50,000 suns which is that people respond. The fact is by the way it reminds me of a story of the machine that has lincoln laughing at his own jokes while the new secretary of the treasury churns out greenbacks. After the nomination is characterized as contemplating the laughing head of the public hand and saying i knew him, a fellow of infinite where are they now. But few depictions are more unrest in and the portrayal in the british magazines, columbias nightmare inspired by the cartoon that shows lincoln as a smoking demon. The antietam episode offered an episode of the attack with a poorly executed cartoon headed the commanderinchief considers the soldiers vote on the battlefield. It place placed lincoln at the r holding a tap as a reminder of the disguise when shipping to be cooking for short his journey. Several bodies are being carried for the field while an officer turns to a wounded soldier. A distraught figure signals his distress and the president demands a. They took alarm at this story on the public imagination and prepared a report for the press and lincoln for a while but it was bellicose and offered to try his own hand at it and in a careful statement to appear, he rebutted the false account while traveling on an ambulance keynote i was asked to sing a sad little foam 20 years ago then someone of authority asked me to sing Something Else so i had a comic song of which this was one however the place was not the battlefield. The time was 16 days after the battle and no dead body was seen or even the grave had been three and omonths since it had rained. On reflection however, he decided not to release his account telling this is the whole truth about the affair but i like to appear as an apologist from the act of my own which i know is right. The democrats assault on the dignity and levity during the dark summer of 1864 did nothing to improve the prospects but as it changed in Early September with confidence in the election, new democrats joined republicans in rebutting the colonies. They explained the Chicago Convention has left a democrat is no choice between Jefferson Davis with all his crimes and Abraham Lincoln with all his walls. Call him a choker, the chicago said the democrats are trying to make it a joke of the continent were century. And you elect a laugh at your own arrogance and cowardice. Posters, cartoons, the party turned to choke against the nominee. Mcclellan tries to ride horses that lincoln put into play within farmer that remarked of a companion that wasnt best to swap horses when crossing streams. There was the starspangled circuit writer struggling to keep i on his horse. The president looks on and declares. Mcclellan has one hand falling on the reins stretching for action and another is labeled peace. He said i cant manage the act knowhow. You tried the forces on the peninsula but it wouldnt work this drew attention to the deep division between mcclellan and the party. There was a harpers weekly cartoon standing on his cupped hand the president addressed the tiny general and turned against his opponent. This reminds me of a little joke. Its impossible to determine precisely how the reputation shaped the Balance Sheet that the administration supported him and found it distasteful in the case for them at least the matter was not decisive but opponents believe that it offered a great opportunity. The focus on the cool joker in the final weeks of the campaign shouldnt be seen as a measure of increasing desperation but evident before the hopes went in. Lincoln will understood how it could expose him to misrepresentation and damage and after careful reflection he opted not to respond publicly to the story. After his death wit, the reputan as the president ial story spinner, Joseph Heller would come to take on a counter to the character but that however doesnt the reality during the deadly days of the war. [applause] we have time for just a couple questions if you would like to ask one please come to the microphone and also, we have copies of lincolns life purpose and power available on the tab table. Out of all of the jokes by him or her about him, what is your favorite . [laughter] there are too many [inaudible] thank you for asking. I spent most of my academic career studying this period so i am attracted to the use of the house and relationship between the preacher and the congregation. The one that i tell about the drunk that says i will stand with you there are several in that genre. One that ive drafted because it is so deft and gentle and shows him so quick on his feet is the story of lincoln in the hospital where there is a young woman and the bedside of a soldier that has been wounded. She asks where were you wounded and he says he was wounded at antietam and she persists. Lincoln is aware of whats going on and she turns to him for some help so he talks to the soldier privately and comes back to the young lady and says the bullet that hit him would have missed you. [laughter] ive long thought that his skill of telling offcolor jokes was the engine of his early career. I think it probably is. As i said we have to be careful what we mean by offcolor jokes many of them wouldnt seem to be quite so crude as they were thought to be at the time. A number of his stories were collected later [inaudible] i think most of his audiences were male so when he was working with the young man in new salem and when he was a lawyer meeting with other layers and the people in the hotel piece would have been all males. A lot of the stories would have been a combination. I think lincoln was right in the sense that the weight of the storytelling would have been this kind of but it did not like stories for their own sake to be fair may be in the storytelling competitions others may have been the case that this is what has been said of him and the attraction was the capacity and applicability so yes he was a choker but there was a purpose. What are your source materials because so much of the history on the link and was pieced together many years later from interviews of people that hahave known him many years latr and not just sort of apocryphal and invented so in terms of all of these things how reliable that is a good question and theres always the tension between wanting to claim authenticity with a really good joke. [laughter] there are two ways of answering that question. I had a very good compendium of lincolns stories were serious scholars of lincoln. It wasnt in the way that i would have done that mor but moe encyclopedia listing of the stories. There are stories we know that he told because they are in his own hand or reported in his own speeches and there are those that worked with him that wrote down at the time and reported at the time and then there are those that are told after his death by those that are close to him and then it gets remote from the scriptures into the early 20th century there you have people talking about stories that they heard where their opinions heard and you have to question the authenticity of those. Quite a number of those memoirs of the contemporaries and legal contemporaries published through the 1870s, 80s and 90s are a source one uses with description. After lincolns death was so appalled by the things that were being claimed especially with respect to their religion but he said about accumulating those materials from people that knew him from indiana and illinois and most stopped in 1860 but we get a flavor from those on the ways that he was appreciated with certainly several tables told by people that were there at the time. You are right it is apocryphal. Theres one story that i havent told him i didnt know whether to include it in the book or not so i did. Im not certain it can be proven. Can you give us the social and cultural context of what was considered smutty enough time period and were there any gestures or phrases that would be considered dirty or Something Back then that we would know about today . [laughter] [inaudible] the materials that would have been considered vulgar, dirty would have to do with sexual relations and bodily functions. Those are the main ones and there are ways of eluding to it in the mid19th century and gorgeous greatly without it being considered vulgar whereas today we can make those four or five years ago at an exhibit he had the description of the paintings and however the hands were there it was considered a dirty gesture so im wondering if in the 1840s, 50s and 60s if we use a middle finger or maybe they had another gesture that means the same thing. That is a good question but i dont know the answer to that. Think you. You mentioned sandberg. Were those included . Are the jokes within . The papers were used by Michael Birmingham and a key is such a generous scholar. Doesnt seem to ring true . I think so. Theres one where lincoln tells his story of a man that is so trusting of his wife that he bets that she will not come to the overages of another and he becomes aware that hes standing outside of the door of that bedroom so he knocks on the door and the wife replies with a rough poem. They said if the public knew you were telling stories like this it would be the end. From that free market has authenticity. It doesnt matter whether a particular joke can be authentic or not there was a certain authenticity in the stories that represent his style. Lincoln was exhausted and wanted to because someone wanted him to tell a story so he sent him out. It has to be a surprisethat there has to be a story about it. [applause] i remember it was referenced to be a lot of locker room talk to. Was there any female reaction to this, did women get to hear this or was there anything ever like that . Maybe not, i dont know but it intrigues me. I dont know how many of the jokes he shared with mary. [laughter] i take the analogy that you were raising and i would repeat what i said earlier i think in his case it wasnt for his own sake certainly nothing suggested a lincoln spoke in a way that degraded women. But there they are preachers or drunks it is the foibles of human kind hes wanting to expose and i agree with what michael said earlier about a sense of humor and having a sense of appreciation. While he was not a humble person, the humility and his relationships with people so he wasnt a conventional locker room person. [applause] she talked about her book at the reagan president ial library in simi valley california. This is an hour and 20 minutes. The room got really quiet really fast. Welcome to the 2017 Ronald Reagan Student Leadership program, excuse me, reunion. We are honored to have you here today. We have students from our pilot december 2013 in