Very loosey goosey. And then when weve all had our word, well have an interchange amongst ourselves and with you all. So just have a conversation as we go on a couple of housekeeping things to begin with this weekend for those of you that dont know is the society of president ial descendants first biannual, gathering as call it. This is a new society, president ial descendants. There was no thing before till i created it. It and we have a partnership with Long Island University who takes care of much of us. We really appreciate the tremendous amount of work theyve done. And some sign of it is this roosevelt right here, which if you havent had a c bit to see you havent see it yet do walk around it. Youll each go who are staying for dinner . Well go to a different dining room and the way thatll work is, well have a Cocktail Reception in front of the house and then everybody will go to their dining area and. Then as dinner finishes it will all come back in here where. Doris Kearns Goodwin will receive the first ever biennial president ial historian award of the society. And then she will give a what i think is going to be a fascinating talk on president s use leisure time. The thought theme of the weekend has been things you dont and we mostly focused on tr because thats the site for this particular one. But shes going to focus on all not all but her collect her, whoever she wants among the president s, the whole theme of the weekend has been what you dont know about the president , particular president s there is in the room door are silent auction and even those of you who are not to dinner feel free to bid everybody bed. And if youre not coming to dinner you better bid hi as a start because thats the only way youll get the item people do. And afterwards, if youre not to dinner, theres a staff in there. Tell them you know how to reach you. If you win theyll theyll take care of that. So and as go on here, if you have any questions fine let me know. So let me see. Is there any other housekeeping i forgotten . Anything youve done for who . With restrooms . Oh, they are. Theyre there. A whole bunch of restrooms down there. Feel to really go out and aid. And ive already thanked elihu which is, you know extraordinary what theyve done in this house ill tell you, four months ago i came here it was a work site. There was nothing i mean, you know, strip basically back to the walls. Its the e. F. Hutton, the house and. The place was a total mess in two months ago. You know, dr. Klein, the president , the university was right back there was. Do you want to say anything to this group now . Okay. Assured me it going to be fine. And im thinking to myself. No, no. And look at it. I mean, its just unbelief of about 9 10 of the work. Not quite as done in the last 10 minutes. I mean, you know, like all projects things had to be done at the last minute. It is spectacular and its going to be a lot more spectacular. And this is going to be a destination in the long island for all kinds of people here. I mean, this is its not a replica of the white house. Its white house themed and we see providing a major resource, first of all, to all kinds, you know, schools and the like here on long island and other groups will be hosting, you. People can come and give parties here and get married here, you know, whatever. So the Roosevelt School, the newly created Roosevelt School here, which a degree granting operation just getting into going, which will be on Public Policy and international affairs. We are focused both as Society President ial descendants and the Roosevelt School on training of all on training the next group of leaders of our country and various ways and in providing a forum for all kinds of thought leaders in the country to come here and wrestle with the issues. Of course, this country has no issues now, right . Theres nothing to worry about. And two of the major sort initiatives of the society of president ial descendants, other than just meeting other year, one is civic education. One of the real problems we in this country is weve completely to educate our citizen you hear all the time about my rights. My rights, who has not told them that you dont get rights without responsibilities. And you know, that seems to have completely disappeared. So we want to be part of a National Effort to recreate Civics Education at all levels at all levels. And first step we took was to create a national day, which is on october 27th, not because thats teachers birthday, which is. But thats coincidental its the date of the first publication of the first federalist paper back. And so 1789, i think was in any case. So Civics Education, we think, is really important. And so, for example, coming to this president ial descendants, we have some high level government elected officials and others who are trying to interest in this. And the other thing is president ial studies we want to encourage president ial studies. Our first effort at this was to create bi annual president hall leadership book award, which we held last october in in new york. The the book winner was a great by ted widmer called lincoln on the verge from the time when he was elected the time when he was inaugurated which is only a period of a few weeks and how dangerous it its a terrific book for showing us today that this is not the first time weve faced major constitutional crises. And that was an excellent thing. And every year well do that. It was a substantial award we gave 10,000 to the winner, which puts us in the in the top and the runners got something so anyway thats what were all about but lets get to what were doing now so i to start with just introducing everybody and raise your hand sarah Sarah Garfield berry yeah. You might guess that garfield means something there and shes a garfield next is james earl carter. Where are you, james . You are. Hes the only member here i think. Whos in the white house. And so he may have. A few things to say about that. George here on my right, as you might guess, is a cleveland Ulysses Grant deeds. Now, wonder who he is and richard gadiel, who is the oldest, whose ancestor is the earliest of president s get of that trouble. Get out of that trouble is monroe all the way back to monroe and monroe actually is featured our morning talks of the Monroe Doctrine and im Tweed Roosevelt should have started i suppose with me im tweed im a great grandson. Theodore roosevelt. Im you know the what do i call the chairman of the school and a professor at nyu and . Just delighted about it. Elihu i wont go on about its just a fabulous school it is being turned from an almost dead private small private here on long island and they had the good fortune. I dont want to sound like im sort really groveling here too much, but anyway, we had the good fortune of having kim kline. Dr. Klein appointed president. And what shes done is i mean, the thing im most impressed about, of course, is that Roosevelt School, there are only 31 veterinarian schools in the country and she got the 32nd and theyre places like north dakota, a big animal state that has no and an excellent university, has no school who really a fabulous achievement and thats just one of many things theyve been doing here. All right. Enough of that. Im going to start im just going to go round the room here. So why dont we start with . You okay . Sounds good. Thank you. Tweed. What if id known that about the Veterinary School when i brought my cats down, they. They they need their shots. Its really good to be here in tweed. Thank you so much for all that youve done in getting the society put together and certainly i echo his thanks to too Island University for the amazing job that theyve done. I am george cleveland. I live in tamworth, New Hampshire. Its the the foothills of the white mountains. And im Grover Clevelands grandson. A lot of people have a little difficulty and raise an eyebrow. When i say that. But it its really easy to explain, because how can somebody so young have a a grandfather who was born in 1837. The answer is simple its sex and math grover born in 1837 he married my in the white house in 1886 she was 21. He was pushing 50. My was born in 1897 he met married my mother 1943 when she was teaching his children from his first marriage. The resulting being i have two nephews that are older than i am so we really stretched it out about as far you can i believe there are im not positive on this, but i think there are only three living grandchildren of century or 19th century. Excuse me, president and thats myself, my sister. And believe it or not, harrison tyler, whos the grandson president john tyler, who was president i think it was 1841. So born in 1798, 89, yeah. So it tells you something about the water in washington. I think its is what that really comes. Comes to grover was just briefly grover was really kind of the last of what you might call the what called the log cabin president s, where came from literally very nothing he was born in caldwell, new jersey, right across the river. Caldwell, second most famous resident, first being, of course, tony soprano. And he was born his father was a presbyterian minister. Ministers we didnt have megachurches then. They did not make a lot of money. And he followed them out to fayetteville when when Teddy Roosevelt was running around in the woods and capturing animals and trying to figure out what they were and learning. Grover unloading long boats that came in to fayetteville, new york, off the erie canal and delivering them throughout the neighborhood all, all year long. And at one point, he said he said, okay, im out to cleveland, ohio, where your relatives is. Long, Long Distance relatives found that that town he was stopped there by one of my uncles who said, why dont you stay here and work the farm, which he did. One thing led to another and he became sheriff of erie county and talked about things you dont know, this one doesnt usually show up on jeopardy, but grover is the only president that ever executed two people. He hanged two people when he was sheriff of erie county. He also made a of saying it was a very unpleasant task. The reason why he pulled lever was because he did not feel it. Usually a deputy did it. He did not. A subordinate should have to do the work. So thats why he went and did that, he had a he had a be a meteoric rise to it mildly became of buffalo governor of new york and then was nominated to be president. And its its a its a really kind of get a kick out of the fact that now new york state has its second governor from buffalo. So i feel it feels little odd. It feels good about that grover of course was the jeopardy fans will know it he is the only nonconservative active president and he was one of the president s that won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote. And theres a lot of he and president since we are at the Roosevelt School, had a lot of interaction together and was interesting because weve got two people from two parties. But those guys, they were to work together. Although i have a feeling that grover really frustrated Teddy Roosevelt an awful lot grover was a pretty progressive reformer not progressive as Theodore Roosevelt i think that got got mr. Roosevelts nose out of joint said it should be doing more should be doing more but we have a wonderful letter that is in the back, a box and some relative basement. Right now. It is a letter from president roosevelt to grover early in his term, grover had written saying, ive got this guy who is a really great doctor and really ought to be that you know, the surgeon and president roosevelt back and saying it would be my pleasure to appoint your friend as his Surgeon General whatever the official term was right there. So they had a lot of interaction together. And i think there was a great deal of respect for each other, too. So its and i guess the thing thats most important i find because Grover Cleveland is kind of an unknown president , nobody knows a lot about him except for those of you have thousand dollar bills in your pocket. You know that, thats where he is. And, you know, when i talk to kids in middle school, thats the thing that impresses them. Absolutely the most. Except i do not have 1,000 bill to show them. But one of the things thats so important about any about anything to do with history is not just lectures to people. Its vibrational history. And one of the things the society is able to provide on civics day and all long is they get a real live president. Descendant can go into a school and and answer and the middle schoolers, i find, are always the ones that ask them the most. You know, they dont ask questions about the tariff and they, you know, they dont ask questions about union issues. How much money did he make . You know what, kind of what were your pets names and . You know, these are very important things, but it makes history a little more alive and. Maybe that is going to fire interest in history. A more than just the fact they have to memorize all the president s. You see some alphabetical thing i could not do all the president s in order myself right now. So that gives you an idea but thats kind of a c of the whole thing also important to note, of course, is that Grover Cleveland does have a rest area named after him and the new jersey turnpike. And for for a while it might small tiny town in New Hampshire where i live was a good friend of mine tony halsey i guess of his grandfather was two people in a town of 2000 people in New Hampshire who had rest areas on the new jersey turnpike after them. So, you know, we we we rest on that quite frequently. I think to me, that sort of about does it for or for what ive got at the moment. Move on then to richard. Great. Here we are. Its its fantastic to be here. Thank you all for for coming tonight and tweet. Thank you for this. And kim thank you for everything youve done for the university to. So my name is Richard Gasol and ive born in baltimore and weve been from there for many, many generations. And im glad to be up here today to get to know sort of the beauty of long island. Im at home, ive got my wife, catherine, got two daughters, 23 and 21 that are off of college and just out of college. Im very proud to be the fifth great grandson of monroe. When i was six or seven, my parents told me this. My dad told me this. My grandmother me this. And i thought fifth grade, fifth president , fifth grade grandson. So i could always it. So it was it was easy to remember and remember when i read my grandmothers name one day. Her name was Elizabeth Courtney monroe, emory gartrell. She was named after the lady after her third great grandmother and took this pretty seriously. And an early age. You said, richard, thats something you need to be a good steward of this. You need to be a good ancestor, learn about your family, about your ancestry and the importance of your lineage. But dont it doesnt make you any different any better than anybody else. But just utilize that. And ive that with my daughters. Its been great learning of taking pride in the history our country and ive learned so much about so great people and i think we can make a difference when it comes to civics. And its so in that i just the broad brush of james monroe that theres my Favorite Book about him is called monroe the forgotten founding father. And i was in the car today with someone she oh, isnt he the forgotten founding father. And i said, well, yes, yes he is, but but for the five first president s were from virginia and there really was the virginia dynasty. But hes, you know, much more overshadowed by the three. And thats okay. But he just had a different style. But one thing that if youre going to leave here tonight with a little fun facts are things. And ive got a bunch of them is that he started service to this country in 1776 and it ended in 1825. He held the most titles and the most positions of any president. He had a 50 year run and and he was a secretary of state, secretary of war hes a president. He was ambassador to england. France and and and theres so many stories, him and his friendships with napoleon when he was in france and in lafayette, he a 50 year friendship and relationship lafayette and and you know the whole fabric of this country when he started we were getting our our tails kicked in new york city when he first went up as a lieutenant working with George Washington and then certainly the battle of trenton, a big turning point for things. And he was involved that. And then once again, you go 50 years later and hes 68 years old or 67 leaving the presidency and really going from an infancy of a of a country that was an idea. Just a thought to handing off of sort of a growing world power to the rest of the country. Thats a lot. And 50 years and i just think we have a hard time kind of putting that perspective right now. But its something im proud of. And if i get another chance, ive got some sort of fun little i dont want to get into the dates and in the history books stuff but theres some great sort of rich fabric stories of kind of his life and and then also just another thing get into is about how, you know, it was painful. It was tough, life was tough. And it you didnt go into politics for the money or for the glory. You did it because you cared and when you want to do a revolution, it ended one of three ways. You won. Thats a good story. Or you lost and you died trying. Or you lost and you got shot because you know youre an insurrectionist so two of the three were bad and one was good. And luckily, you know, he was on the winning side and i think were all on the winning side. So once again, its great to be here. So ill pass it over to you. Ulysses. Thanks, richard. Well, its hard to follow you, but because you have your facts all in line and ive been listening to the lectures. Morning, i kept thinking, oh, i need to say this this afternoon, but i hadnt to because i was going to say what tweed told me to say. I mean, generally speaking, not specifically, but but so im to do both quickly. Is that so . Ulysses grant deetz my mother was julia grant married . John new yorker. Her father was Ulysses S Grant the third who went to west point father was Frederick Dent Grant, who went to west point. His father was Ulysses S Grant. So its a line of descent. I was the last of 41. Great, great, great grandchildren born to ulysses and julia grant and i was the last one and i got the name. Im the only ulysses in my generation. And that was instrumental in shaping my life, although i wasnt paying attention to it because being a descendant of u. S. Grant meant nothing to me much until i decided to my first name. I grew up as dietz, and in syracuse, york, where my family had a factory with name dates on it and huge letters. Thats who i was. I was a deetz boy, but my mother was julia grant. Her friends knew that and she told me that grandfather u. S. Grant, third never talked to me about it ever, because i was the youngest grandchild and he didnt know what to say to me. He an old man. It was all past. And in the fifties, sixties, it was not good to be descended from u. S. Grant. He was an embarrassment. People make fun of him when they learned what my name was so i was a teenager. I went to Phillips Exeter academy, which is where u. S. Grant junior went, who shares . My birthday. Coincidentally, i feel theres some karma there. And then going away from syracuse, going to New Hampshire to go to school, i decided going to be ulysses now. So i changed hugh grant deeds to ulysses. Deeds. And ive been ulysses ever since, and thats when i started to pay attention. I was offered in a history class. I didnt like history. I learned to like history in my. I avoided history in college. I took it in graduate school. But in high school i learned to hate it because it one teacher and the regents and i was offered and we and we had to write a history about a Major Political figure of the 19th century and. I chose not Ulysses S Grant because that was difficult and embarrassing, but i chose my other political ancestor, who ill get to in my next part of this was elihu root, who was Teddy Roosevelt secretary of state. And thats a nice segway. I realized, because i wrote and it was the most boring book that i used as my resource and i still have it, but i would totally write a school paper on u. S. Grant. Now and thats another story which maybe we can talk about more. But i just the roosevelt thing, im really very and sort of i keep reminding myself how deeply involved Teddy Roosevelt was with my family in a number of different. So mckinley the president Teddy Roosevelt is the vice secretary of war is elihu root. Frederick grant is living in washington living in new york. His father has died. Hes gone back into the army. He knows Teddy Roosevelt because they were on the police commission. They helped clean up new yorks police department. And fred had out of the army to help his father and then to nurse his father and help him his memoirs when he died, help him through the bankruptcy which was a humiliation, fred goes back into the army. And im sure that between lheureux to secretary of war and Teddy Roosevelt as bellicose Vice President they helped get made a general mckinley made him a general he wrote to mrs. Grant and i still have that letter saying, oh, i have a secret. Im making your son, a general. And then he got to puerto rico for the spanishamerican and then to the philippines. So his career around and what does he do is he goes to his friend Teddy Roosevelt when he becomes president , says, my son is just about to graduate from west point because mckinley, using a deathbed letter from u. S. Grant, made my grandfather go to west point in 1899, and then he gets out of west point with douglas macarthur. By the way, they were classmates. And fred says to Teddy Roosevelt, you give my son a job with, you in the white house . And he did. And my grandfather went to work in the white house in 1904, where he met elihu daughter edith, who was my grandmother. And so ive always thought and of course, that changed my familys dynamic. I mean, for a brief, glittering moment, there was, a political dynasty there, it faded very fast, by the way. So that was sort of the consciousness i bring to this, because washington, everybody in my family going back to washington, julia grant is a widow with grants opened in new york city, went back to washington, d. C. , Frederick Dent Grant when his he died, his wife went back to washington, d. C. Everybody went back to washington, dc my grandfather kept going back. Ive never lived in washington. So i somehow got cheated out of all that because i was the youngest grandchild. And ill just leave you with that and you can all wallow. My pity. Thank you. Hi my name is Sarah Garfield. Bury. I live in central mass outside of worcester. I work in investment, but recently in. For eight years now ive been selectman in a very tiny town, probably smallest in the state where i have started. Pay a lot of attention to what running some kind of a government all about and how hard it is. So im the great, great granddaughter of James Abraham garfield, who we all know was assassinated by a mad frenchman charles uto, who pursued trying to get any kind of ambassadorship, i think primarily to france within with daily visits to the white house when garfield was in the white house. But most of what my family, im the oldest of six knew about garfield growing up this vast collection of books that told us what temperature was every wood what his body temperature was every day he was dying there were there were descriptions of mausoleums and draw drawings of the mausoleums. But what i really grew up with, i have to credit my father with, which was the values that garfield. Garfield never wanted to be president. My Favorite Book that really turned me on to what he was about was destiny of the republic, which to me was a page turner and an emotional book and. I, like you, came to loving history much later in life, and this place has certainly solidified that. So i just want to say im a very new member of this society. Its made me look backwards and see where the values of work and thinking others first, which is really what garfield to me was about. Certainly my dad was about where its come from. I can certainly say it came from the integrity and the generations. I was fortunate enough to have known or heard of growing up. My father knew president garfield as as his great grandfather. I did not know him. He was known as a bum. That and i really couldnt tell you without going back and looking at up what his real first name was when was little . My dad ran school and left, led the morning prayers of which there were essentially only two his children were not particularly religious. The two prayers that dominated our house, which to me come from president garfield were teach us to choose the hard right against the easy wrong and to give us clean hands. Of course, wed all sit and look at prayers, looking at our hands. But that wasnt really what it was about. And you mean garfield embodied all of this to us as i learned it. History, governing so hard. It consumes your personal. If you care about the responsibility that you take on. Garfield was very charismatic and grew into all the roles had with grace. I think. He was 18 years in the in in congress before he was asked to become president. But it was on multiple ballots that he got elected because no one could agree on the candidates that were running for. People just sat in a room and cast ballots at that point and. It went on and on. Well, he did not seek office. He accepted what was thrust upon him. After many of those ballots. And in those days there was many lies and false that pervaded the election as there are today. He survived them all it was. He was steadfast in his antislavery positions. He knew on election his first quite quiet life that he knew in ohio was gone for the rest of his life because he was elected to that position he would have mostly survived wounds had his doctors not been on such ego trips about which which procedure or what technique was going to help him the most. Theres a new term. Theres a new meaning to me for blissed out because the doctor that kept thinking that he could cure his infection by jamming pokers into him all the time killed him so blissed doesnt mean to me to be happy anymore. But its in the book in the book is really more of a medical recounting of his life. So theres much similarity, the chaos of the time that were in now, the extreme factions in, parties give us a sense that the country is divided in many ways and garfield worked hard on uniting different parties. He was piecemeal worker. Ive become a peacemaker in our town. I certainly am a peacemaker in our family and my dad certainly was that in the life that he led the Roosevelt School recently founded here brings focus to civics. And ive learned much because im one of the very new members in in the society of what this school intends to do. And i just think its one of the best things ive heard about in a long time. Civics was taught when i was young. I its evaporated and our sense of responsibilities for our freedoms are missing in many cases. So i think what just like to say that garfields presidency for me was more about values of how to live your life, work hard and take care of others. There was a lot of modesty in our in our house we were never patted on the head for doing well every day. We were assumed that we would go out, work hard and not need a lot of attention. I think its because it was a pack of us in the house and my dad ran a school we all went to so we couldnt be recognized. But nevertheless, i think that is the most important thing is James Abraham garfield came from nothing my dad pretty much came from nothing at the point of coming out of the depression. And he worked hard and put good kids out in the world. So thats what i look back to, is because it was a very short presidency, is the values that were there. Thank you. Hi, my name is james earl carter, the fourth i was born at the end of february, 1977, a month inauguration at bethesda Naval Hospital in my first home was white house until came. Yeah. So my experience is a little bit different than some of the other descendants. My president ial ancestors being alive still and my having grown and been around when he president and for the amazing that he has had so i feel like ive been blessed and then i have a kind of behind the scenes view of history like you can almost touch it. Yeah. I have see the Carter Library on june 1st of this year posted a picture on instagram of me meeting tip oneill. When i was four months old. And you know, the caption is on this day, june 1977, jimmy carter, tip oneill to have dinner. And in the residence of the white house. And so its, you know, my mom holding me in front of tip oneill and were meeting i also have pictures of me with anwar sadat at at camp david, i believe, was on one of his preliminary visits not on the big working visit that ended up in the accords, but so i have that those are, of course, pictures and not memories because i was so young. But i do have of being in certain where you could almost touch the history. One of our Family Vacations we take every year i was at one point because a somali warlord was on the phone and wanted to talk to my grandfather and so he had to run off. We were in the middle of Yellowstone Park and had to run off and find a secure phone somewhere and he was gone. You know, the rest of that day and things like that happened fairly often. And we always kind of expected that and took it in stride because thats just the way it was. I also in the year 2000 and bill clintons last year in office, he the family to come back to the white house and spend the night on the original plan was that he would be there to meet us and then he had another thing that he had to go do. And hillary was off somewhere else already and was not there. So we were just going to, you know, have the white house to ourselves. No. I mean, no, bill clinton is not known for being timely and holding a schedule. So in this case, we benefited that because he decided that he was going to have dinner with us. And then after dinner, he and my grandfather sat around the table in the solarium. Me and my cousin josh and talked about middle east and african Foreign Policy for an hour and a half and was during the time that clinton was trying to build a peace accord between palestine and israel. And the discussion which i wont go into was, i mean, amazing. I was just in awe the entire time both of them had encyclopedic knowledge of all the issues from all of the various countries that they went even down to the level of knowing the name of the staffer on the ground that you know for instance in some of the african countries where the Carter Center had staff my grandfather who was in charge of what that program and, that country which i pretty proud, i was like, yeah, you know, good job. And then clinton would come and say the name the staffer in the embassy that was in charge of that specific issue. And that thing which which was just incredible. And it was every single country. It was like, okay, have your person get in with this person and well, well work it out. I mean, it was just it was such a display of like intellectual but also history being right there behind the scenes, Current Events like happening and kind of getting look at it in a way that no one else did really. I mean. The very few people knew what was going on behind the scenes. So that is my experience. Im particularly blessed not only. I chose the right parents. But just because my family, the way my grandfather is he is not, you know, pretentious. Hes very down to earth and family is the most important thing. So the family has been there for everything that he has done, you know, all of it. He was never afraid to invite family members to come on important things when the people who had invited him not necessarily expected for other family members to come, but, you know, that was just the way he is with his family. I want to thank. The Roosevelt School. You this has been great event. Ive learned a lot. And i just think theyve done a wonderful with the house and i have never been to this part of new york it is beautiful and im glad here thank you. Okay. Well, thank you. Is this live now youre hearing me . Yes, you can hear me. You, everybody. That. That was great. So now its your chance out there to ask any us, anything you want to, and maybe well even answer you so. Go ahead. So. Have that i you that is to be president. Im just wondering how dad is how grandma is and whats going on. Do you contact them and get in touch with them frequently and see them well before yeah we did family dinners at the Carter Center for all the family that lived in the atlanta. And we did them about once a month, sometimes they werent able to make or whenever, but about once a month. So we got to see them a lot. And then once covid hit. They were in planes, their house and you nobody in the family wanted to be the ones that actually, you know, killed them. And that you thats not what you want really. So so we havent seen them as much since then. But my dad, who is chip. Yeah he goes down to plains a couple of days every week and sees them now we keep in touch through him. Its now to the where you know, the secret service in plains have a covid machine so they can do tests pretty instantly so we can now go visit and so okay. First let me point out, by the way, cspan is filming this and taking the microphone. You are giving a sent to cspan to film this. So you dont want to be filmed by cspan. Dont ask a question and also lets wait. When you get ready to ask the question, why wait . We can get you a microphone. So okay, well, start with the lady back there. Hold on a second. Theyll bring you the microphone. Thank you. And congratulations to president klein for creating this fabulous for our community. Im victoria steppes, publisher, the Long Island Press and a few other media and 88, to be exact, to tell you too much about me but i did want to ask you know i read Ulysses Grants autobiography biography and i know he wrote it to be able to support his after his death. And im wondering, are you still getting royalty . Is. That no one has ever asked that before, but in fact, im retired and i have a pension but there was a trust and in my grandfathers will, he said the money from s grants memoirs is still there and is still generating interest for the family. I dont know how much is, but so its still supporting me. And i would also say that his memoirs, i think, are the single greatest he did in his lifetime because in less than a year he wrote 600 page book while dying of cancer in constant pain and earned 450,000 in 1885. Cash for family. And julia did not spend it all. I always up assuming she just spent it all, but apparently she just lived on the interest and it for her family so its an extraordinary thing. His death is a theres actually a whole book about his death called about its about grants by louis and but death is a great epic you could write an opera about it except. He was tone deaf so that would be a waste of time. Okay. Okay. Well get to you in a minute. Hi, allie mazower and im actually with state university, new york, but i know dr. Klein, president klein for years and just shes incredible so its great to be here. I run a program for young women to become leaders and theyre from disadvantaged, underserved communities. Theyre doing amazing things. Were in 10th year. So the question i always is, what advice would you give to Young Leaders, young people becoming leaders, and maybe particularly if you had any advice or wisdom for young women to become Global Leaders and addressed it, somebody ill look at i can i just Say Something to that because i think its one thing that i think is really important is that we try and resist the the desire to look at what happened in 1922 1822 1892 through a lens of 2022. Its not one problem. All president s have had. And i believe all president s shall have as long as they are human and at that and that is is you know, theyre going to air theyre going to make mistakes. And to take to take certain things that, for a perfect example, Grover Cleveland did not think women should vote. Grover clevelands wife not think women should vote. She did change her mind later on. But you know that was thats why studying history is so important. It wasnt just like here was this guy who just had this, like, stupid idea, you know, it was there was a reason it so this is why the study history is so important and so we can understand better and understanding history better. Were to understand whats going on and just tell them, go for it. Dont no matter. How many times people tell you to stop . Keep going. And ill also add to that that well, heres a tr story. Itll first part of itll make you cringe. When tr was a youngish man out in the west, he made a comment at some point talking about native americans saying, well, you know, people the only good indian is a dead indian. And he said, well, in my view, it says maybe a nine times out of ten. Thats true and maybe even a little suspicious of the 10th. So that was a statement he made early on later in life, much in life, he developed a much more, uh, sort of balanced view of the problem of native americans and so on. And did a lot for native americans. So even a book, the five friends of the American Indians or Something Like that, and hes one of them. So the whole issue then is of course, particularly somebody like tr, but most president s in their views evolved over life and our views have evolved and thats got to be taken into consideration. And so it annoys me when, you know, somebody says something about a particular particularly. Tr that, oh, he was a, you know, he hated the or whatever. So its the job of the teachers of this country to teach. And i think on the most part, theyre doing okay. But weve got to help them. One, one thought. Ive raised daughters 21 and 23, and i continue raise them right that the jobs never over in comfort it is the one word that comes to me of when theyve started to shine and and and become leaders in their own right. Its when they had the confidence without confidence its they werent going as far and the other thing is being able to shut down social media and just not let Noise Control who you are you just once can get over that maturity level. Then i think they they then become their own person and theyre not become a person they think they want to be that becoming they want to be and thats that that would be a key thing for these young ladies that are trying to branch out to become Young Leaders confidence and avoid the noise of social media. I would add a couple of things. One is to not be afraid to go and ask, you know, what can i do in government or or i went to a work study college, but any small job when youre young will teach you how organized work. And i do think to your point that life is a perpetual confidence game. You know, some people seem to have it right out of the box, but i didnt turn. You have to learn to speak up. And i think there are innate in many personalities. People that dont know they even want to lead, but they like to make decisions and take responsibility and theyre not to try new things. So im let me just introduce myself. First of all. Thank you. I am elise levine. Dr. Elise levine and i am the director of the master of Public Policy at the Roosevelt School and im not going to pass up this opportunity. T were on cspan. Um we talk about leadership. We talk education, we talk about gender, um, we talk about education. Um Public Policy and civics at a graduate level, even undergraduate come to the Roosevelt School. Please think, about the opportunities that young people can have today across all demographics, across all different, different demographics different upbringing, different social statuses. The mpa program, the master policy. Um, that we are so pleased to start and i thank dr. Klein and vp randy bird for allowing us to bring the master of Public Policy to the Roosevelt School. Were very excited to be part of it and to bring academics to this already wonderful wonderful platform. Thank you. Thank you very much. Were delighted to have. Thank you. Let me tell you, were delighted to have you. Okay. Whos next . The equipment behind you. Then well come back. Go back. Hi, rob lamb. Just a question. I have you have the Roosevelt School and ship of james jr, the fourth. I have the library. But what avenues do descendants utilize than forums like this to, you know, get out the messages that you want to get out about your descendent and leadership. Well, there a Ulysses S Grant president ial library which is at Mississippi State university, which is a fascinating story. Im on the board of that and they have become, amazingly enough, Mississippi State university has become one of the centers of civil war studies and politics of the second half of the 19th century because of that interest. And its drawing young scholars, male and female, the new executive director, a woman professor at msu. And so that didnt exist before there, was a huge collection of papers that were sort of being privately published over the last 50 years. And now this public institution, supported by a school by the way, tweed in a huge way that has really made a lot of it possible. So thats thats one way and its become an enormous for people who want to sort of find the truth in the archives as to listening to what people say on, social media. So thanks for bringing that up as a question. Anyone else on that . So i the way we got we got somebody from pennsylvania week looking at that my. So so im Bertram Taylor im a great grandson of Rutherford B Hayes and im on the leadership question on the leadership question that was just i participate with the hermitage, which is the Andrew Jackson museum and and they run a program called the president s of america, which i participated in for a couple of years. And they get number of speakers from congressmen in tennessee and and leaders. And its High School Students come and its a weeklong camp and they get all these speakers that speak for an hour and it helps them to gain confidence to to learn. You know, i teach them a little bit about my great great grandfather, but but also the principles of leadership. I think its important know, you know, i go through like Colin Powells statements. I mean, its lonely to be leader, you know, theyve got to be prepared for that. They also have to be good follower it to learn how to be good in the group and they have to have the confidence to do something. But there are programs out i think this is a fairly new thing future president s of america and i think the Benjamin Harrison library started and its starting to go around. So so look for it. It might catch on. Okay. Can i say that one other if two events that are going on, first of all, is the civics day that we mentioned thats going to be growing by leaps and bounds to get the word out. There is also an organization called, National History day and it is stronger in some states than it is in others. But it goes and gets kids in the schools to create projects multimedia projects about something of historical value and it gets them involved. I was the keynote speaker at national the new york National History day out in cooperstown some years back. And it was i was in a gym with 500 kids screaming like it was a pep rally and my question to them was, how many of you are to go home from here today into your town and have the fire truck escort you back into town . How many of are going to be welcomed at the Mayors Office like the Football Team is . Its weve got to build that up. There is no h in stem. Unfortunately and weve got to get that a little more in the in my humble opinion. You got it right. Yes. Im cindy phifer and i work for the international of first ladies for peace. So theres always some nice first ladies behind these wonderful, too. But what i wanted to ask is with grant, you said you didnt want to admit you were with him. And i you know, they won the war. And so i was wondering what was behind that why you had to wait to admit that you were with. I was curious. So how much time do we have here so. Well the short of it is that even by once he died and as the tomb was being built, which was a struggle, theres a whole book about that. Uh, the reunification of the country after the ceasing of reconstruct. And a large part of that was very conscious political effort to undermine his legacy to build up robert elys legacy this was conscious and its very well documented and it did not. I mean, robert e lee died first, but he, he would have had no part of it. But was done without either of them being a participant. But Frederick Douglass watched it happening, and it happened well into the 20th century. And so his and the very the earliest biographies of us grant were written by confederates who were not known confederates then, but were southerners who were history according to the mythology they had been learning and promoting and so by the time by the time my grandfather was the military was in world war two, grants legacy was butchery and drunkenness. And he was a bad president. He was not. He was a stupid president. He was not he was much higher in his west point ranks than people acknowledged. But all of this negative mythology had been built up and no one had ever, including the mcfeely. I have never read the mcfeely biography of grant because its so that i dont want to read it because. And my grandfather wrote his own biography of his grandfather. His grandfather dedicated to his three daughters, including my mother, saying, need to set the record straight. Most of it has been false from up until this point. And thats in 1969. So so thats why i grew up with that and thats why i dont think he knew how to talk to me. Plus, i also think there were things that my grandfather was not a perfect person either and i wont go into that. But he had the prejudices of his time and i dont think he knew how. Talk about any of that to a 12 year old, which is what i was when he died. But so i think thats but something you said about the first ladys my first entree into u. S. Grant history is reading her memoirs, which are published in the 1970s at the behest of my mother and her sisters, because she didnt want published in her lifetime, because she didnt well, probably because she didnt want to eat into profits from his memoirs, which had been keeping her comfortable. But she also didnt want to take away the the light on him. And she fortunately died before it. Too unpleasant. But her memoirs and her extraordinary insight into what i think is of the great president ial couples in the history of this country, as great as and abigail adams, at least. And i really want them to make a movie about that but but not a musical. So we have time for one more question. Lets say, okay, to do as well as, you know, make it right has no then written a balance account of oh, a lot. I mean. Ron chernow yeah, but a lot of other people ive read a lot of biographical books on us. Grant theres a book simpson wrote a great book on reconstruction. So, you know, theres been a lot of writing. Thats why i say its a i feel a lot better about now. Its a great moment to be descended from you as grant, but it was not when i was a child. Theres one back there. I think you had your hand up. Nope. Okay. Back there. It french. Are you going to Say Something. High then . Krista felt the Art Department faculty. Can you talk a. The relationship between mark twain and and grant. They were very good friends. Twain created the book that made grant all that money. He did not write one word of that memoir no matter what youve heard, its the manuscript exists. Its all in u. S. Grants hand. Its all handwritten in pencil, and its in the library of congress. So. But twain really went to grant. Theyre ripping you off these jerk. But my son in law is to have a publishing house, and ill give you the best deal ever, which ultimately probably bankrupted his son in law. But thats not even the but so but you know it its funny because if you read the gilded age, the original book by mark twain from, 1873, not first real novel, but not any. Its a collaboration, but not his best book. One of his most interesting books. He sort of makes fun of u. S. Grant as the head of this corrupt government in the 1870s. But he changes his tune and becomes really close friend toward the end of grants life. So im really sorry that were going to have to cut this off now. Obviously we have gone on longer, but its thats where we are so i want to thank everybody for coming i want to thank my fellow for what theyve done. I want to remind people those all people are welcome. Go to the silent auction in the room next door and bid. If youre not for dinner and you want bid. I said this earlier to the but everybodys here now. If you want to bid, youre not staying for dinner. You better bid. I if you want the if you want it and tell the staff in there, give them a phone number or something so they can call you for those who are staying to dinner. You can pass through that room and then youll be shown on to where the cocktail shows are. And thank you, cspan. Thank you cspan. Thank you. Thank. And well adjourn the meeting. Thank you all for we appreciate 77 years ago american soldiers who had been fighting their way across europe liberated the wartorn continent