Ok. Gentlemen, our first speaker today is dr. Timothy s sydnor. He is professor of english at the City University of new york, Bronx Community college. He holds a doctorate in english education, a masters in religious studies, and masters of divinity in theological studies. Person,e have a museum a lawyer, and a theologian. [laughter] discussiono our today the perspective of a scholar who pays close attention to the power of words. All the monuments on our collective commemorative landscape have back stories, stories of individuals or groups , who decided to erect them where or how they are, and to read the words on them that we see today. His 2011 book, an illustrated guide to virginias Confederate Monuments, is the First Complete catalog of virginias monuments, but it is much more than just a catalog. It is a study through those monuments of ideology and meaning and provides a window of what the people who erected them were thinking at the time and wanted to say. Sydor has finished a similar study of tennessee monuments and is working on another one about mrs. It be. Mississippi. His wife tells me she has seen more monuments in more states than anyone else in the union. [laughter] i think the two of them together have seen more monuments in any of those states than any of the resident in the state. The program today will draw from his work on all three states and is entitled words, breast, text, and landscape, virginias civil war, monuments in the context of mississippi and tennessee. Good morning. I am very here pleased to be here to stay to you about Civil War Monuments on the american landscape, specifically in context with tennessee and mississippi. My work in this area has taken me to Civil War Monument from the Atlantic Coast to the mississippi river, from nor folk, virginia nor folk, virginia, to memphis, tennessee. East to west. From the Potomac River to the north, eleanor. Self. Gulf coast and the we have moved county to county to county to battlefield to cemetery to poor houses to wayside, to city parks and to state capitals. I wanted a text. I wanted to collect a text. The collectived monument landscape of virginia, tennessee, and mississippi, all of it together. So over the course of several years, i researched and identified some 400 monuments, union and Confederate Monument in virginia. Some 400 union and Confederate Monuments in tennessee, and most monuments,ome 800 union and confederate in mississippi. Twove at least preoccupations when we drove down the appellation valley into tennessee. Appalachian valley into tennessee. I assumed these states would yield similar results, that the collective text would be essentially the same from one day to another. This is something that was not borne out. The monuments in the states as striking regional distinctions. Preconception that each monument is different is true. The idea of the standard Confederate Monument is a myth. There are no types. They may look the same but they are not. They are all interesting. They can be variously cryptic, descriptive, vexing, mysterious, banal, and provocative. They can be funereal or sentimental or defiant or restrained or if uses. They can be thin ocular and acular and obscure , as well as prominent and majestic. It becomes a matter of breaking a code. They are telling us something and we are missing it. It comes down to this what is the message . What are they trying to tell us . The process reminds me of the servicemen and women who worked to break the secret codes of opposing nations in world war ii, the men and women who broke the enigma code. Five digit numeral groups like and this was, their secret according to thomas dyer, u. S. Navy. He wrote that what you do is you sit there and you stare at it until you see what it says and then you put it down. Untilok, you look at it you see something that attracts your attention, your curiosity. Maybe you did not see anything at all. You go onto Something Else and the next day you come back and look at it again and again. I am not breaking codes of other nations, but i am and we are looking at a vast, fragmented, complex text. Words, breath, image, and landscape. For example, monument avenues symbolic importance is of course singular. Absolutely distinctive. Lee,es of general Robert E Thomas j stonewall jackson, je b stewart provided over the landscape, grand equestrian form. Richmond still looks like a national capital. On monument avenue, beyond monument avenue virginia monuments frequently defined the war in nonnationalistic terms of virginias who fought for virginia virginians who fought for virginia, not for the confederacy. The Lancaster County and Northumberland County courthouse monuments east of richmond, do not mention the confederacy. Even the war is not mentioned. The focus is on quotes. For who gave their lives the cause of their native state and the south. Addition, we use the term Confederate Monument were confederate soldier, but many monument inscriptions deliberately avoid the use of the word confederate. Many do but many do not. At Stonewall Cemetery in winchester, the virginia obelisks remembers 398 virginia soldiers who fell in defense of the constitutional liberty and the sovereignty of their state. ,hey fought for virginia virginians fighting for virginia. Furthermore, we speak of the lost cause but the monument makers do not. I found only two mentions of that phrase among the 400 monuments i studied in virginia. I found none at all among the 400 in tennessee and only one in mississippi. Did they lose . Surprisingly depends. Arguably, of all things is irrelevant. Arguably, the outcome is not the issue. Even the cause is not the issue. The greensville courthouse monuments in emporia, virginia declares that greensville countys soldiers fought in defense of rights they believe sacred. They took up arms against the invaders of virginia i love that phrase, because i am one of them the invaders of virginia. The glory dies not in the grief is passed. Finally, we speak of the American Civil War but the monument makers do not. We use the term American Civil War to describe the events of 1861 to 1865, at the monument makers defined the conflict as the war between the states. The phrase civil war israel used on virginia monuments is rarely used on virginia monuments. It occurs three times among the 400 i found, very few in tennessee and mississippi. The official term is the war of the rebellion. As you might imagine, this never occurs on a Confederate Monument. Second the conflict a war of independence is a declaration in itself. Calling the conflict war between the states is a kind of four word sermon, if you will. The stanton river battlefield tablet erected in 1955 describes a conflict between citizen soldiers, virginia infantry and virginia citizens taking up arms and defeating soldiers, citizens from pennsylvania and new york. No confederacy, no federal, it is state versus state. The cause is not mentioned. The war is not mentioned. The outcome of the war is not mentioned. In contrast, tennessee was a kind of border state. The war is understood in contrasting ways. We might expect to find many Confederate Monument in tennessee. And of course, we do. Ashville, dresden a closeup of the dresden monument. Alexander p stewart at chattanooga. There are many Confederate Monuments, most of them to be found in tennessee towns and cities. However, on two of the major battlefield, shiloh and chattanooga, the Union Soldier dominates and a number of Union Monuments vastly outnumbers the number of Confederate Monuments. On the shiloh battlefield this is chattanooga, let me show you shiloh there are more boundaryregimental gun monuments to union forces. At chattanooga, union battlefield monuments lying Missionary Ridge and are scattered across the slopes and crests of lookout mountain. Look at that come up on that hill in the woods. The Cravens House on the terraces. All the monument tatian at stones river is devoted to the service of Union Soldiers. In fact, you there are more union money meant in tennessee then Confederate Monuments monuments in tennessee then Confederate Monuments. At the same time, there are almost no tribute to tennessee Union Soldiers, just this one at Nashville National cemetery. And this one at the Greene County courthouse in east tennessee. Tennessee Civil War Monuments continue to reflect the same divided tennessee during the war and there is a continuing ambivalence to this day, including monuments such as this one at crossville in Cumberland County attributed to union and confederate soldiers. That is an ambivalence prevails in tennessee. Mississippi, monumentation describes an embattled state which embarked on a course that its leadership voted for and its citizens largely supported. They paid a heavy price for doing so and mississippi monumentation reflects that legacy. Mississippi soldiers fought bravely and well. Aty turned back union forces fort pemberton and rolling rock. They stopped sherman at chickasaw blush. They won at chickamauga. At the crossroads was a textbook armsry, of confederate over union forces. In spite of these victories and others Confederate Forces were conceded just defeated. Defeated. They withdrew from tennessee altogether and they lost at corn, mississippi. They lost a sixmonth campaign for vicksburg, lost new orleans, and surrendered natchez without a fight. They would not give up, and i am summarizing and 19 in broad strokes. However, painting in broad strokes. In short the war was a death ride for mississippi. Mississippi could no longer contest largescale military movements across it territory. Civil government was no longer effective and a general breakdown of order could not be avoided. Nevertheless, mississippi was one of the last confederate date to surrender states to surrender. The war has not ceased to affect the people and landscape. The people of mississippi did not forget, but the way in which the war hashich been remembered in public space is complex. As early as 1906, the Mississippi Legislature appropriated funds for the direction of Confederate Monument statewide for every county in mississippi to have a monument of its own. This promise was not fulfilled. Many counties do, but fewer than in virginia and fewer in tennessee, and many do not. More than elsewhere, mississippi monuments juxtapose life and death. They offer tributes, express affection and sentiment, they show the flag but they are not the laboratory and they are not triumphant. There are 80,000 graves of confederate soldiers in mississippi. 27,000 of the mississippians who went to war did not read turn return, and those who did where emotionally and physically crippled for wife life. The population of the state who were 15 years or older in the state were not alive, only five years later. The legacy, the evidence for this legacy may be found across mississippi. For example, there are excellent military histories of the battle of shiloh. The unexamined aftermath of the woundedthousands of confederate soldiers could not be properly cared for. Hundreds of wounded men were loaded onto railroad boxcars and then south and west to small towns across mississippi, as authorities looked to see how many could be cared for at each stop. The soldiers came from any state but many of them never left. They are still there. Today monuments at corinth, macon, meridia, brooksville, boonville, columbus, enterprise, canton, oxford, holly springs, and natchez marked the sites of hostile and cemetery grounds where the sick were cared for and the dead were buried. Affiliated notoriety associated with county courthouse or state monuments, there is a theme of tragedy and morning. This certainly affects the way i understand the meaning of the Confederate Monument. For example, although the figure of a confederate soldier surmounts the monument at the courthouse at laurel in jones county, mississippi, the figure of a woman in morning, take that closeup down to this young woman. The figure of a woman in mo urning is arguably the centerpiece. Similarly, the figure of a confederate soldier there she is, there is a closeup. The figure of a confederate soldier surmounting the hannahs has the look of a veteran facing north, ready to take on northern aggressors if or when they come again. , aever, a second figure young female, in classic greek ng. B is clearly in mourni so they justified it, or at least they sentimentalized it. There is the confederate flag. Annenberg n the in lunenberg. The courthouse at clark county, mississippi declares these were the noble men who marched north beneath the flag of the stars and bars and were faithful to the end. However, the men were killed, disabled, or died on a regular basis died of disease on a regular basis. As for the women who lived through the war, a state capital monument in jackson testified, quoting Jefferson Davis that calamity was there touchstone. Tothe men, i am drawn historian Matt Hastings description, tragedy or absurdity because as is so often the case in times of war, brave men were called upon to do fine and hard things in pursuit of a national illusion. Vicksburg. S me to it was here that federal troops commanded by Ulysses Grant surrounded the Confederate Army commanded by general john anderton. Afterurg was surrendered 47 day siege and a sixmonth campaign of maneuver and battle and near starvation. Vicksburg is the southernmost city with a National Battlefield park of the civil war. At 1800 acres, it is more than twice the size of central park in new york city and has been called the art park of the south with an inventory of 1330 monuments, markers, tablets, and plaques. It may be the largest Outdoor Museum of sculpture and commemoration in north america, unlike any other civil war battlefield. To enter the vicksburg Battlefield Park proper is to enter grounds that are fenced off and separated from the city, to secure the grounds and irreplaceable sculptures. There was one gated main entrance. There is a second entrance to the national cemetery, but this is the main gate. You can imagine security is impractical. But there are several lines of symbolism to this as well. Marks the monumentation the siege lines that continue to surround the city with all of the irony that is implied by perpetually surrounding the city of vicksburg with commemorative federal siege lines. To this day, unless you go west across the mississippi, you have to pass through the siege lines. The landscape itself is held apart, it is sanctified. You must enter the park through that arch. The arch is a kind of point of entry into a temple. All the elements of theater and drama are present. Almost all the dates and narratives terminate at 1863. The participants have no life afterwards. The drama is centered on siege and the surrender. These participants, the dramatic as personae are commemorated in profuse narrative detail. Names, numbers, and narratives copious, ond with multiple monuments or wayside tablets. There are more monuments in tennessee there is the detail more Confederate Monuments in tennessee. There are more monuments in vicksburg and mississippi and Confederate Monuments. Because of Vicksburg National military park, there are more Union Monuments in mississippi than almost any state in the union. Pennsylvania, because of gettysburg is the only exception. Mississippi offers a unique point of contact between northern and southern interpretations of the meaning of the war. First, several Confederate Monument at vicksburg are very dramatic. This statue of a texas common soldier depicts an utterly confident figure, as if he is quite ready if those yankee boys come again. There he is. And monuments like the Alabama State memorial offer defiant counterpoints. The sculptor titled this monument the death stand. We will give you a closeup. Four soldiers are firing their weapons, two are wounded, one is wounded and neardeath, and the woman at the center theres the confederate battle flag. It does not look as if they will last long but they will not give up either. However, the vicksburg monument and landscape is also clear about this this was a union victory. Monuments such as the massachusetts common soldier, the rhode island common soldier, and the new york obelisk, offer clear testimony. In the end, the north, the federals won the victory. There is another dimension to this temple space, temple sacrifice in the most literal sense. Architecturally speaking, several state and regimental monuments have an exquisite form with a large style, a temple for, a place of sacrifice or sacrament. The illinois monument is the largest and most elaborate. It seems unpleasant to have to walk up 47 steps on a hot summer day, but no, you go up to higher ground. Similarly, from union avenue streetlevel the wisconsin state monument looks like an impressive but simple large column surrounded surmounted by an eagle. You have to walk up to the temple for where bronze tablets display the names of over 9000 wisconsin soldiers who served at vicksburg. You walk up to the sacred space at iowa, the iowa state monument. And you walk to the state of mississippis monument. 1906, when a bill was introduced in the Mississippi State legislature to erect a state monument to mississippi soldiers at vicksburg, it received a very mixed response. Opposition was strong for state funds going to what one legislator termed a yankee park. [laughter] dr. Sydor the legislation passed by one vote. When the monument was finally april, 1912, it was the first confederate state monument in the park. It looks impressive. Architecturally speaking, the monument has a temple form temple floor. The essential female figure is veritableed above a greek temple floor with a granite lisk rising 76 feet granite obelisk rising 76 feet above her. As large and impressive as it appears, there are several features that have a more subtle symbolism. First, although bronze relief let me go backwards, these are some of the bronze reliefs wrapped around three sides of the memorial depicting mississippi soldiers in valiant combat however, there is nothing on the fourth side, on the back facing the river. It is blank. Apparently, funding was lacking for bronze tableau, although one was proposed but there was no funding so they left it blank. Second, there was no inscription on this monument, no statement or testimony, nothing apart from the seal of the state of mississippi and the state motto. For so large a significant monument, it does seem you did. Architectural critics note that the work is not as good as other monument at vicksburg. It has been difficult to preserve for this reason, and the gaps in scenes are apparent in the bronze work that would not be present on a work of better craftsmanship. It looks good. It looks incomplete, so what is the message . Summersay that on a hot mississippi afternoon, the temple floor of the mississippi monument seems like nothing more than hot stones on a july day, but there is something vexing, use it about the fixed elusive about the vicksburg battle monument. It seems to me that this agency has meeting meaning, that this space speaks. I can only conclude that this monument represents an unfinished and incomplete ritual. This temple space is symbolic of a valiant but doomed sacrificial defense. Southerners at vicksburg had nowhere to go. They have their back to the river and after 47 days, the southerners were outmaneuvered, placed under siege, assaulted repeatedly, starved out, and ultimately forced to surrender. They did not want a monument in a yankee park. They did not want a final word. And they got what they wanted. The war ended, the war was lost, but the conflict continues. Reconstruction, segregation, civil rights. Note, say on a brighter another mississippi monument at vicksburg, this one attributed to African Americans from mississippi including those who fought for the union. They could not see the future any more than we could, that they wanted more than a surrender site. This day one for better or worse. It is curiously appropriate the civil rights leader and mortar edgar evans martyr maker evans, a world war ii veteran, courted his wife on the vicksburg battlefield. Vicksburg is, he wrote one of the states most youthful spots. Is. Te the tents, not was, it is present tense. The landscape scenes fixed but it is dynamic, it does change. Soldier, thepi corn mississippi corinth mississippi africanamerican woman, and in the process of this journey we took, somewhere i realized there is a pattern here, that the monitor monuments are telling us this, it is not over. The war was not lost as the fight is still going on. Modest for example, the but numerous monuments on a petersburg battlefield some 30 miles to our south, marking the defense lines of the Confederate Army. There are no statues, no sentiments. Inscriptions are terse. Fort lee is present tense and the creek stands, part of the defense line is here. Fort coins the inscription, did not fall during the siege. The salient quote was successfully held during the entire siege, and never failed. It was a bandit, if i may add. But it did not fall abandoned , if i may add, but it did not fall. The cliche about bringing history alive is a myth, history is alive. We are it. We are part of history. We are part of them and they are part of us. We are connected, for better or worse. Filmmaker ken burns describes his work as an emotional archaeology. Maybe that is too sentimental but it has a true sentiment. We sentimentalized the wartime generation and they can be sentimental too. It helps us to bring the war down to a mortal conflict between citizen shoulders soldiers who got along, who might have been friends, who were friends or relatives who fraternize between the lines and traded tobacco for newspapers. They liked the same music, often shared the same religious faith. Lincoln declared that both sides read the same bible and pray to the same god, and each at some level we might find it comforting to think of the war in terms of the depiction of a confederate soldier, Richard Kirkland, rising to the aid of wanted Union Soldiers on the battlefield at fredericksburg wounded Union Soldiers on the battlefield at fredericksburg. A union and confederate soldier shaking, that dimension of history is true. It sounds very positive. I would love to end right here, on a positive note, but that would not do justice to the dead. Ehrenreich that the civil war is a vivid but im graspable story that still confounds interpreters on graspable story that still confounds interpreters. That is a mercy. This boy for example, does this boy look like a killer . Not to me. I can see him in one of my classes, as a college freshman, a little awkward, spells my name wrong. Keeps his hair combed, as you can see. He looks a little bewildered by life. He passes my class. He gets his work done. That of course is not the life he lived. He has got a weapon. Put him on a battlefield. Of his, when some buddies look like theyre going to break and run he does not even notice. He finds his weapon and reloads it and fires again. His buddies stay because he stays. Maybe he survives the war. Was the war about slavery . He might not even think about it. Storian Gary Gallagher says virtually all white americans were intensely racist in the mid19th century. Shot sergeanty Richard Kirkland at the battle of chickamauga, boys like this one. I feel certain that Richard Kirkland, who was merciful to Union Soldiers, also aimed and fired his weapon as well. Walt whitman was a witness to the war, and a great writer. But even he wrote that the real war will never get in the books. And that is a mercy. They knew how ugly it was. They knew it better than we do. Tennessee,des in 80,000 in mississippi, it is merciful that the landscape covers the dead that they are just below the surface. Preacher, Union Soldier, and future president James A Garfield who told William D Howell after the war that the site of dead men who other men had killed, something went out of him, his lifetime that never came back again. The sacredness of life and the possibility of destroying it. You can tear these down if you want but it is not that simple. Do we take down half the missouri monuments at vicksburg which are the two both sides . What about the state of kentuckys monument at vicksburg . It is a tribute to both sides. Do we remove Jefferson Davis and leave Abraham Lincoln . Maybe, but maybe we do not. Maybe we bulldoze the graves as well. There are precedent. William tyndale was murdered by his opponent and his dead body was burned. Another reformer was executed on charges of heresy, his body was burned and his ashes were thrown into the rhine river. Maybe that will bring peace and can peace and conciliation, i do not think so. The wartime generation of soldiers is dead but they still speak, and the women speak to bank. Women made the Monument Movement into a cultural phenomenon. State and local governments to their share, especially in the north. Veterans have their role but women were crucial to the monuments. Womens groups, William Blair observed, virtually controlled all aspects of the Monument Movement conception, financing, design, and dedication ceremonies. The idea that history is written by the victors is untrue. At least in this instance. The women tell the story. The women played a priestly role during the war, and they shaped the way the war is understood today. Women played a key role in erecting monuments like this and this. And this. No matter what stance you take on the subject, the monuments do us the service. They do not tell us the whole story, they spare us. The monument on the manassas its austere face the stone preaching and audible lessons. The landscape demands a preacher, a priestly mediator. The modern monument is an inarticulate fixture on the landscape, a mercy that the landscape monument covers the dead. Reminding us of them and their the in their and heartaches and thousand of National Shock they were air to. John keegan observed the geographical challenge of the war was an element of resistance that had to be overcome and was never relented. In a real sense, the north was fighting the country itself in an attempt to overcome the south. The rivers, the mountains, the climate, and i think it is right to say the south was finding the same landscape but in a larger sense we are fighting the same landscape. It took does coalesce to do that we two of us to do the research, a wife and i, a spotter and a driver. One to drive across the present tense landscape, the second person a spotter to survey that same landscape for the past. For the past, for at least 4000 years. Monuments have been erected to mediate the tensions between the natural, the landscape, and the manmade between the earth, the as vincentthe gods scully summarizes it. At issue is the meaning of the landscape and the value of deeds done. The meaning we invest in the deeds of the dead, the sacramental value of deeds done. I was born and raised as a yankee. That is, i am northern born and i am a union man. U. Ercase on the i work in the bronx, i went to college and graduate school in new york. I passankee stadium Yankee Stadium on the train going to our coming from a campus. My office looks out on cedric avenue, another Union Civil War general. The civil war is very much a part of the landscape. For better or worse, i would not be here if it were not for world war ii. My father from the north that my mom from the south and a uso and aduring the war, union that lasted 56 years. But no one will ever mistake me for a southerner, although i have southern roots. I say all this to say in the broadest sense, i would not give the moral high ground to one side or another. I wrote at least four different conclusions to this talk. But i am only choosing one. It is this. Here, toa moral issue lock this ground, to truly walk this ground whether on monument avenue or Hollywood Cemetery or petersburg or shiloh or vicksburg, one loss at some level contends with the same frustration that lady macbeth confronted by straining to discern and remove a guilt about deeds done or not done. Out, andl it, perhaps, damn, spot. And his ownlle misgivings was based upon this painting, more specifically storms formed behind the storms we feel. This painting and melvilles poem and lady macbeth in the Civil War Monument allude to something that is both ordinary and repugnant, something deeper. A base, inner corruption of the soul of humanity that was destined to give way to the American Civil War and its aftermath. As corruption is not just american. It is not ethnic or racial or institutional. It is a radical iniquity or immorality that every generation bears. All of them have gone astray. All of us have gone astray. In my judgment, the Civil War Monument represents an insufficient sacrifice, a perpetual disequilibrium. Life, breath, word sacrament, and landscape. I thank you for listening. [applause] first, i want to thank you very much. Clearly an excellent presentation and just as importantly, a passion. [laughter] [applause] work with you in a unique position to help us understand the monuments here in richmond, particularly those on monument avenue, in context. You have seen them all. What is it about those monuments that in your estimation, relative to everything you have seen, makes them different or are they not different . What did they say that is different from what others say, if anything . Importantly,as what does that suggest for us for the future . Dr. Sydor re speaking of monument avenue or the broader context . Lets stick with monument avenue. Dr. Sydor you are really confronted with its humanity. Robert e lee is a man and he has all the flaws of a man. And stuart and davis, they are such complex figures. They have virtues, a certain integrity, and enormous flaws. I think we have to judge them in that kind of context. To be fair to them, you recognize what their great strengths are and you also recognize the enormous gaps of ethics or morals were just misjudging the times, misjudging the times in which we live. I think that is, as grand as they are i am sure you will reference this, lee is taller by taller than washington by eight inches it is an effort to make them great but i think they are great men. We have great men and women in this room, but we also recognize the humanity they possession they possess. My favorite monument in virginia is less than five feet high and very few people know where it is. Those are the dead, those are the dead. That is what we recognize. Or should. Go. Thank you so much for this. Real quick question about technical and historical accuracy. There isey, virginia, a grand old monument to our confederate heroes wearing his cloth cartridge belt and bearing his rifle, and other instances of that, both markers in places where troops were not and as well as technical. How does that impact that memory you were just talking about . Dr. Sydor it depends on who is doing the design. Very scant correspondence on how they decided what and how. The correspondence i have read is they were very conscientious about recreating, this goes here unless they are in action. If they are in action, it goes here. They are very serious about that, what kind of weapon. I do not want to guess. They are drifting toward world war i and the figure start looking more like that. The confusion about ethnicity, the norfolk monument in 2006 looks approximately asian because it was crafted by asian craftsman. It is reflecting the times, context. Various groups were more or less conscious. The udc is less apt to be perfectly accurate, that is not their interest. They want to remember, rather than be accurate to the time this happened. Accuracy is less of a focus. You are welcome. Thank you. [applause] i could not agree more with the gentleman who said what a fine presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to break for lunch and reconvene at 1 15. I do not know about any of you but i am looking forward to the Panel Discussion only have more time for q a at the end of the day. We reconvene at about 1 15. At about 1 08 the museum staff will start chasing you this way. Thank you. This is American History tv on cspan3. We will continue our live coverage of the symposium from richmond, virginia on Civil War Monuments after the lunch break. The next hour, Pulitzer Prize ellis talksoseph about what inspired him to study the Founding Fathers and what he likes most about each individual character. He talks with american studies Professor Robert watson at this focus by the society of arts in florida. [applause]