They they found the president formulation Madison at one point suggested malfeasance but then he thought better of and thought wow that's going to politicize the process too much because then we'll overuse it that this is the problem it has to be rare enough that it almost never occurs but but common enough that it can be used in extremity and so finding the way to tune the impeachment clause has been one of the was one of the difficulties of the constitutional convention and as you know historically it's proved to be a very difficult business on the the 3 or 4 occasions when it's come up in your country Edwin Randolph introduced it it was part of his Virginia plan Alexander Hamilton submitted his own plan based on the British legal system but not all of the delegates favored it Governor Morris fear that it would cause a president to become submissive leading him to become a quote tool of a faction George Mason said No point is of more importance than the right of impeachment he asked Shell any man be above justice and then we come to Mr Franklin who was noted as offering his own thoughts that impeachment was preferable to the more traditional way of removing a monarch in Europe by removing his head 1st in fights of course that's the difficulty of this is to is to know when to invoke it but let me suggest something that's worth considering by. The people of your time the idea was that the House of Representatives would serve as a sort of a grand jury and they would decide whether to impeach national officer and they would put together a bill of impeachment the bill of particulars not unlike the one that I've provided in the Declaration of Independence and $776.00 the Senate would then sit in judgment the Senate would be the jury. And the the houses case. For impeachment for removal would be put to the Senate and the Senate would be dispassionate objective nonpartisan that they would sit the way you want a jury to sit and weigh the evidence but not have a particular party allegiance in this moment that they in this moment they had to rise above partisanship and become a true senatorial jury of presidential malfeasance or misconduct and so your time as you know that is not the case of the United States Senate it hasn't been for a long period of time but one wonders if the founding fathers would have. Written it a little bit differently had they realized how significantly partisanship was going to distort the process in the course of the national experience thank you very much Mr Justice you are welcome sir. Hi there I'm Abigail Backman local host for N.P.R.'s Morning Edition on 91.5 And I'm David Greene N.P.R.'s Morning Edition west coast Host So Abigail we're both up in like the middle of the night getting the news ready can you do without coffee or do you read but what do you do it's really my anticipation of the dawning of a bright and beautiful brand new day it was really really poetic Ok Well I'm glad we're all in it together Morning Edition weekdays $5.00 to 9 am on $91.00 k. Or c c. Good day citizens and welcome to the Thomas Jefferson our your weekly conversation with President Thomas Jefferson in fact this week we're going to extend last week's conversation about Benjamin Franklin and I welcome the creator of the Thomas Jefferson our Mr Clay Jenkinson Good to see you sir and you too Benjamin Franklin 170627090 he lived to be 84 years old 37 years older than Thomas Jefferson a pretty amazing age to live to in that century he had the president of good health that actually that sets up the 1st story you've heard it before when Franklin and John Adams had to share the same bed. His scythe. We talked last week about the book by h. W. Brands the 1st American he gives a great account of that so the. Admiral Richard how invites a delegation from the colonies to come to stop my land to meet with him because he hoped that in doing so there could be a reconciliation and we wouldn't have to fight this terrible civil war and the Continental Congress sent 3 delegates Edmund Rutledge from South Carolina and Benjamin Franklin from Philadelphia from Pennsylvania and John Adams from Massachusetts so they get to New Brunswick New Jersey on their way to the New York and they stop in. And then there are only 2 rooms and somehow Rutledge gets one of the rooms and now Benjamin Franklin and John Adams have to share a room and so right there you're already pretty laughing at this story to think of these 2 men who didn't really know each other very well and didn't particularly like each other in Laurel and Hardy there is a kind of a Mutt and Jeff Laurel and Hardy and yang you know sort of thing here so a bit but it's important that Franklin was very conscious of health Yes And he you know he he discovered in many things about human physiology he was you know like if we say a polymath this was a seriously and he done some pretty incredible medical experimentation during his life including he discovered how well he saw my eyes tell people caught cold Yes The other thing it wasn't because you got cold it was because of confined spaces in what was the term you used to breathe the others air right yeah yeah he frowsy air he said yeah frowsy air so so anyway they get into this room and imagine how uncomfortable any one of us would be to have to sleep with the essential stranger in the same better than Then I can imagine not to mention Adams being the stranger and so Adam's assassin Franken is large they have they're both big men and so there's a tiny little window in this this awful little room the probably the sheets weren't even clean and they're going to we're going to spend the night in the same bed which is probably the size of a double bed not even a queen maybe and anyway if they were lucky so Adam says I'm going to shut that window because I've got a little cold coming on I'm an invalid and I'm not and I don't want to make it any worse so Frank says Wait no no you'll suffocate us he says Haven't you heard my theory of colds and so he says you must open the window it's when you get confined air and it's the effusions from our animal medicine the our clothing in the bed clothes in the linens that's what creates the cold that's not temperature which creates a cold in fact. The more fresh air the better he said people who swim don't get colds people or sailors don't get colds this is this is really a misunderstood phenomenon and so he says all over the world us items things Ok Ok and so he opens the window and then he says he leapt into bed which I would like to see actually And so then he says Franken starts in about his theory of cold he's going out about perspiration and respiration and frowsy air and so on and said I listened as long as I could hold up and then I fell asleep but he said as I was falling asleep I sense that he was about to fall asleep too so here's what's so great about the story David we only know it because Adams wrote it Franklin never mentioned this is probably just another night for him but Adams has a really marvelous even exquisite sense of humor and self depreciating humor and he creates this comic. Tablo which is one of the richest Tablo the Founding Fathers imagine Jefferson sharing a bed with John Adams or with anyone Jefferson the fastidious So I love this that John Adams could tell the story he often told stories that put him in a kind of comic light and I love that about him yeah as a person with a sense of humor as a fully civilized person there's another story that I really got a kick out of that was sort of a 0 a key to to the Franklin's character and you probably remember this in a comes from the brand's book but they you know ocean voyages were tough enough. On occasion ships would be they would become be called and in other words no wind and they were just there for weeks well this on this occasion Franklin was on his way back to America I think that they were in this situation it was off the coast of New England somewhere but it was where cod fishing was happening so what to say was do they have nothing else who say start fishing for cod and they evidently caught a lot and they would take the larger ones and stow them for delivery but the smaller ones they had a team in the store they had a small stove on the deck and the smaller ones they would clean well at this time Franklin was a vegetarian wanted to be a vegetarian and he would say why and for moral purposes you know any was for a while but. It got to him because he was the smell of that fit you know it was it was so good I recollected that when the fish were opened I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs and then I thought if you eat one another I don't see why we mayn't eat you and then what is it but the the the moral is so convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do right so in other words we can rationalize it all you are and that's exactly what the story about the great story but again this is from the autobiography. America's 1st great autobiography Still one of the greatest of all American autobiographies written in 4 different parts of different periods in Franklin's life you know you you recommended if you wanted to read a biography of Franklinton you recommended to the brands 1st and you know many brands right but what about Franklin's auto autobiography Yes of course it's essential because he he has his own creation myth his origin story you know the famous story that he he runs away as an apprentice to his brother and he goes off to New York a but that was only there very briefly and then he takes this little sloop from New York to Philadelphia where he's told there will be work and the sloop takes not 2 hours as he expected to 30 hours on those storms and they don't have any food so he rates near any anything to drink and yet he would I really think that might not be true or might be embellished Well it's part of the origin story I think it's I won't say it's embellished but it's toned up Ok so but think of it so like when I get off an international flight or even a cross-country flight as want to burn my clothes and sandblast my body imagine 30 hours in stormy seas in a clammy world and you're hungry and you're tired and you're rowing just you know just just you're exhausted he gets off. At the wharf in Philadelphia and he's hungry and he has no money and I love that part has a dollar in a few coins and thinks it'll buy him nothing anybody goes so he goes to a bakery and he says I'd like a biscuit and they say we don't sell any of that he says Well how about a 3 penny loaf and they said it's not how we do it he said well what can I get for 3 pennies just give me that and so they hand them 3 giant think of a sourdough round loaf 3 what he calls puffy rolls giant rolls and they're so large that he has to put one under one arm and one under another arm and then he's holding the the 3rd one and munching it and he's walking down the street in this really farcical moment where he's made the social gaffe at the bakery and now he has more bread than he can possibly consume but he can't throw it away and just then on the doorstep of a shop is a young 17 year old woman by the name of Deborah Reed and she he notices her and she's beautiful and she's And he is not and she doesn't and she's amused she sees the farce that's happening in front of her well as everyone knows he married her 7 years later that became Deborah his beloved wife of for the rest of his his time she died before Franklin So this story is a beautiful story and gave away the other 2 lives by the way did too if some poor people so as if there were people poorer than he and I'm sure there were but this is a great story. A biographer like Gordon Wood or h.w. Brands is going to read that they're going to ask themselves some questions. Did this actually happen if it did did it happen in quite the way that Franklin has described was he ever as poor and alone in the world as he appears to be is he as much a self-made man as he seems to be or was there a network of family and friends that helped to lift him up and so on so historian has to be kind of a killjoy in a certain way you know because you have to look at these these especially people's autobiographies where we always present ourselves as we want the world to see us and the biographer or historian has to say. I wonder if there's a way of knowing anything more about this is there another account to Deborah have write a letter at some point in her life or was there an independent observer can we pick up a pattern of embellishment and exaggeration in the work of Frank on and on and on other internal inconsistency in the story so one might go back and actually find out how loaves were sold and what size and for what amount of money in this moment in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and so the historians duty is to is to go in and say this is the sort of the cultural studies term David but to what extent was he self fashioning to what extent was he creating a persona not only in the way he lived his life but in the. Autobiographical account that he gives of his beginnings because it's in his interest isn't it as one of the greatest men in the world to show that he came from nothing that the Bore he makes himself look like somebody who rose by sheer hard work and merit. The greater his his story is and so if you happen to have like a legacy you would want to say that necessarily in the story I'm not saying he did the story I think rings true but it probably was meant to reinforce this idea of rags to riches if you know I I as a reader just interested in what you have right by you know this his story of. You know starting from nothing in being a candle maker couldn't stand doing that maybe becoming a polisher of knives didn't want to do that his father took him around all the shops and started you do that could you do that could you do that and he ended up being a printer which served him well his entire life will come back to this after the break but what was so amazing about as he didn't just print as most working class guys did he read the things he was setting it to type and he interviewed the authors and he borrowed books and so he was trying to lift himself out of the a life of just being a journeyman printer into being a publisher instead in an intellectual which he did as we can discuss when we come back and we will be back in just a moment your listening to Thomas Jefferson. Bill Klein's on Silent Night is scheduled for December 21st at Bancroft park in Old Colorado City more information on this and other public service announcements can be found on the community calendar link at Care c c o r g. $91.00 k. R.c.c. Is dedicated to covering a changing southern Colorado your membership dollars directly fund our local reporting thank you for your support programming on $91.00 k. R.c.c. Is supported by the Pueblos who were helping to create a holiday tradition with electric critters November 27th through December 29th featuring refreshments at the candy cane cafe visits with Santa and 250000 dancing lights tickets and more at Pueblo Zoo dot org by Colorado College featuring a block planned course designed through an intensive academic schedule that allows students to plunge into a different subject every 3 naff weeks more information is online at Colorado College dot edu Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson our weekly conversation while this week our conversation is about Benjamin Franklin and I am not in my in my tights and wiggle out of character or throwing your shoes about this and we had talked about Franklin as a young man and I during the break I talked about how entranced with the story I was you know it's like you want this guy to succeed and he's easy going to get a break and he does and but he kind of makes his own breaks as you said you know he he wasn't a journeyman printer he was he was learning to edit and recognize good prose when he saw and imitating great authors and reading books and then he formed this club called The gentle and it was a group of working class guys or lower middle class guys in Philadelphia and they met on Friday nights either at a rented place or at a tavern and they would eat but they would they would have discussions about things like is our liberty in any danger or what what form of government is bound to have a great set of rules they hadn't what they wanted to do so there were there were $24.00 rules that you had to follow and so it's a bit like a service club like Rotary in the in that sense although this comes my way before rotary but there are 24 and there were things like. Is there anyone new in town that we should reach out to and help along or is there a civic improvement that hasn't been undertaken that we might. Subscribe funds to and help to lead a subscription. Is there is there a problem with the way we're governed that we should try to address in this community 24 such things that you were meant to ask every week is there a new book that you have that you think others in the club should read Is there a scientific discovery that you are aware of that would be interesting to try to incorporate into Pennsylvania life and so this very exacting set of of. Desert a rotter of things to think about and things to discuss and and this was the gentle and there were 12 members only the people came in and some turned out not to be good members and others found their way in over time but this was like a book club in a self-help club in a voluntary association of of civic minded people that led the things that led to volunteer fire department. It led to which he was very very proud of it one of his greatest achievement kind of came from him witnessing the aftermath of the great fire in London right and he also created a professionalization of the of the very informal police force that existed in Philadelphia the 1st circulating library in the new world right. A fire insurance company then he looked at the at the the lamps in the city that were lit every night by a lamplighter who got up on the stool and let these things and he said the Globes if they were if they were reshaped and not in a globular fashion but in a state in straight lenses would shed more light and he got that change made and it did he wanted to get the streets of Philadelphia paved and couldn't convince the city to do it so he and his friends took up a subscription and paved one street and then every other street said hey we we got to have paved streets and so he started the seat so I think of this I mean he he's responsible for not alone but for these important civic institutions which we take for as you know growing up in North Dakota at one time every town had a volunteer fire department not so much anymore because some still do some still do and a circulating library we take them for granted but his view was I have a bunch of books. And you have a bunch of books what if we all brought books together and then had a sort of like we each had to pay a fee every year to buy more books and then you could check them out one of your favorite phrases to ameliorate the condition of mankind it was like that was their driving force and what a bunch of good guys instinctive in Franklin and he spread that around but other guys that whose names are mostly forgotten were were part of all of this too the one thing that I really was struck with in the brand's book is that I did not realize was how much he loved Britain and his vision of America and Britain and their future together he was more British than American and that's such a contrast because Jefferson was always an American he said you know I wish we could reconcile and so well he was that much younger but it was that much younger but Jefferson was never a full on John Bull Englishman but Adams was and Franklin was and Franklin even more than Adams Well Franklin saw it as a as or profitable venture for both sides of the Atlantic he did and he was one of the 1st to advocate the British Empire and then when he realized that might not quite work he advocated the British Commonwealth which is what we have New Zealand and Australia and Canada are members of the empire in some sense but they're basically sovereign countries they they all honor the queen of the monarchy of Great Britain and he was he and Jefferson were among the 1st to propose a Commonwealth model for the United States so that we wouldn't break away or into a completely independent country but we would govern ourselves with a common allegiance to British values to the British constitution to the Magna Carta and to the monarchy not to mention the economic benefits that both would receive from this and much more than Jefferson Franklin was a man of the empire he kept thinking this remember he wrote that famous essay on population and said in Europe the population grows very slowly for and then he voted out all these reasons and he said but in America. Where this empty land the population doubles every $25.00 or 30 years maybe even closer to 20 and he said The time is going to come and maybe in only a century when America has a larger population than Britain right and so he said at that point we'll be the engine of British greatness we won't look down on them but will always revere them as as our parent nation and will still respect and honor the monarchy but we will no longer in any meaningful sense be subordinate because we will be where the action is and so what happened in this is Tell me if I'm wrong but I mean to make it pretty simplistic somebody in Britain got really upset with with Franklin and watched for an opening and found it with the Hutchison letters he was but it was partisanship and hatred of a of a political ally that determined the outcome and you know think what could have happened well if that hadn't happened he might have sided with Britain as his son William did Britain. Had made his son William the governor of New Jersey and when the revolution came when the war of independence came William decided to remain a loyalist. Franklin was so appalled by that he went to his house and saw the portraits of the king and queen and he never forgave his son and they never worked it out they met once or twice his son had a rough revolution well his old friends rated situation was it was a it was strange family but his son from Franklin's point of view betrayed him the son remained loyal to the British government and so the son thought hey that's what we were father because they were in England together so what happened was that Franklin was publicly humiliated over the Hutchinson letters and here's why the British thought you're either with us or you're not you can't have divided loyalties So if you're with us you don't side with the colonies in this dispute we're having with them you have to whatever your private feelings you have to man up and stay loyal and side with the crown and side with the ministry and you can't be a double agent you have to decide are you going to be with Britain on this thing or are you going to be with the rebels and he had tried a little bit of he was sly Franklin was and it wasn't clear which way he was going to go and so when he when he leaked those letters the British thought this is not a reliable member of the British Ministry of the British Empire and they called him into something called the cockpit which was where the Privy Council dressed down people and intense and it actually was a cockpit had you know had been animals and then he was publicly humiliated and brow beaten but what's so interesting about it is that when you read these accounts Franklin stood there proudly kept his head up in say a word just took it just listened stoically then he was dismissed a day later he was stripped of his. Office as Deputy Postmaster of America so then the British really started to punish him well was this Alexander Wedderburn Webber Now the solicitor general the man who probably them very ambitious and you know again I guess guy has said it's I don't know if it's partisan or not but it was and political ambition. Didn't come out well for Britain No but didn't but of course nobody could have known that at the time so we have to remember that it's impossible for us to remember how class conscious Europe was and I was at our age in the seventy's it was still there and you could go down the street in Oxford and say working class middle class student professor I thought it was there interesting recently in the impeachment hearings it was a Dr Fiona Hill right who was a coal miner's daughter right and she said at some at one point in her testimony said that one of the reasons she left Britain not only educational opportunities was that because of her accent and the class system that exists in Britain she would be limited her chances here were much greater and that's yet the Thomas Friedman makes in one of his books that we have the ideal software of human merit that we have a class system of course but it's not hereditary it's not deeply rooted and merit can out in America more than in any other country in the world at a cost to your point during that time it was an ironclad and the term that Dr Johnson who by the by the way that Franklin had dinner with Johnson said subordination that everyone should know his place and that people should subordinate themselves to their betters and you should never try to mingle with people above or below your station you should invite a dual of people above or below your station that people should know their place and be happy that this hierarchy it's no surprise that the enlightened mind of Franklin would look at this and just go he was a commoner planet are you living in Iran he was a self actualized rags to riches success story from the colonies and when they needed to they could put him down over that and that's part of what they did in that cockpit meeting when he was in France the king Louis the 16th called him in and said. I've been following your career here since you got to France and I'm very impressed and I want to thank you for the work that you've been doing but Marie Antoinette snubbed Franklin really you know I what I wanted them to do with this the this roughly a commoner from what social classes they come from so she was stuck Louis a little less so but even in the 1970 s. When I was an option apparently for Fiona Hill even later than that you were immediately aware of a class system that that does not exist in this country and so that's pretty amazing if you think about it Franklin will love France he talks about you know I remember reading about how much how impressed he was with Paris and verse side but Paris was better according to Franklin that it took the palm I think is how he put it in among the things he noted were the incredible clean water that they had a sister and system with filtering the water with sand and you know it was those things that impressed Franklin which again is a sort of a key to. Jefferson to the way the innovations the dumb waiters on the skylights and so on and how kind of French were the 2 of them yeah to both of them and to everyone really they loved America there was a kind of a love a. Romance with America there's a story about him going I think to note there's a huge line for something that's going on and he's afraid he's not going to get in but then they find out that he's an American traveler and take them right in and show him everything and and somehow in his his recollection of this he says well you know why can't America be this good to to its foreign neighbors and travelers and I thought that was really interesting it was it's a fascinating moment I've got 2 more for the 3rd segment to set up my essay for today but but let me just say this much more about him for the moment he. Was not only a self actualized person he was a self disciplined person so he as a young man this is part 2 of his autobiography made a list of the 13 cardinal virtues that every successful person should follow and so he laid them out and then he defined them in brief compass and 13 times 4 turns out to be $52.00 so he made a little grid very Jeffersonian and each week he concentrated on one of the virtues not that he ignored the others but he concentrated on one and then he would work through that entire list in 13 weeks and then start over hoping that eventually he would master them I was going to give you them quickly temperance silence order resolution frugality industry sincerity justice moderation cleanliness tranquillity chastity and humility and he says in the heart of biography that he had only made a list of 12 and his friend said Do you know you might want to work on your humility of your. Own i said no there's some pride in us or and so he added humility and those 13 then became this rotating list of virtues and I'll just give you a couple temperance eat not to dulness drink not the elevation or about sincerity use no hurtful deceit think innocently and justly and if you speak speak accordingly or how about this moderation avoid extremes forbear resenting injuries as much as you think they deserve and then finally humility imitate Jesus and Socrates and so that set of 13 cardinal virtues temperance silence order resolution for Galatea industry sincerity justice moderation cleanliness tranquillity chastity and yes. Even humility you kind of set him up as a super human so you might want to finish that story about how long this process last if it broke down but but one made it through 13 weeks though didn't he and a couple of times but he later published this much later in his life and and Jefferson had a catechism for these things and he said you know you remember what Jefferson says he says when in a moment of crisis I thought well what would what would Randolph do what would George with do what would William small do what would the people I most admired do in this situation he said by by by following that you invariably do the right thing do you think Jefferson's deck along his 10 rules was influenced by this I don't think so I think that's quite well a little bit different so Jefferson's are are more whimsical never spend your money tell you have it well he didn't live up to that never ask another to do what you would not do for yourself and didn't count to 10 when really angry count to 100 are I have these posted in my back or a along with your plaque Yeah the semi-permanent guest host of the planet and my portrait of Adams from from Mars or him there well then you've got all the gifts night oh no but so he did this he set up this this grid and he worked very hard with great discipline early in life but here's what's so amazing when he was 42 years old half he lived to be 84 he realized he had enough money and so he retired and he still are and some money from rentals and so on after that in diplomatic stipends but he retired and he said I'm going to give the 2nd half of my life to science and to the Civic progress and he did and he did and so and he said many times wealth is worthless. If you don't use it for something good and useful for the world that wealth per se cannot be the goal although a life later in life when he was older and needed things to be a bit easier he kind of got used to that opulence of London know his apartment and his carriages but his white was that he had earned it that he didn't have to grub for money after he was 42 years old like him that he had set up a pension system our retirement plan for himself and I just was reading I'm doing this thing on the space program you'll hear a little bit more about it in today's Jefferson watch but he's reading about it on Musk and the author of this book on. The future of privatization of space. Says that Musk reached a point where he after you know he was one of the creators of a Pay Pal that he had so much money that he would never need to work again it is side he was going to give the 2nd half of his life to achieving a greatness that had very little to do with profit and that's why he is giving himself so wholly to the electric car into this the space x. Program that he's working on and so on but it's very similar to Franklin he earned a fabulous amount of money early and now his view is how much more do you want to earn now let's start seeing what you can do with that money for personal self aggrandizement or for the world that's good you know it's really cool isn't it it's interesting because he is kind of a reputation like Franklin probably had you know not everyone likes lawn Musk and not everyone like frankly dragon had his enemies and that's one of the things that I find so fascinating in these books that when he died France went into mourning for months and the eulogies poured in and they were passionate and deeply in respect to Franken in the United States he got only a handful of eulogies in the main one was by someone who didn't even like him and when the House of Representatives passed a bill recognition Asli to mourn for him the Senate rejected that and said that's not what we do in this country we and so this country now has never understood Franklin's greatness as much as France and even England did that somehow in this country we have a way of tearing down that kind of person that that wasn't so true in Europe that's kind of something that's puzzling about America we need to take a short break from the conversation about Benjamin Franklin We'll be back in just a moment you were listening to that Thomas Jefferson on the. Support for $91.00 k. R.c.c. Comes from local organizations who want to reach a well connected audience that's discerning about news culture and how they spend their money becoming a corporate sponsor of 91.5 k. Or c c means your brand will stand out from the crowd for more information about underwriting call Jeanette at 719-473-4801. Programming on $91.00 k. Or c. C. Is supported by John Broome an Associates helping small to large companies and nonprofits Colorado wide from start up and step up to ramp up or get unstuck supporting 800 businesses since 1991 details at moving innovation Forward dot com Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson are on clay Jenkinson this week out of character sitting across from my friend the semi-permanent guest host of the calmest office in our Mr David Swanson proud to be and. We could talk about frankly week after week after week and there's any that would never and there's so much about him and it's also fascinating I agree and I want to thank Ken Burns for inviting me to be in his film and fruition is what sort of started this but then you said what should I read about it and I did and I often go so if we did that just to get it out of the way what I'm getting from you is the 2 recommendations would be a study of brands book the 1st American and Franklin's own autobiography with both of which you can buy electronic copies of for a little or nothing either you can get the autobiography for nothing for free on an i Pad or reclaims or whatever it $5.00 is about the best bargain it's a bargain that's I think his best of many for many many fine books including an excellent biography of of Theodore Roosevelt but I think he put more into the Franklin than the other and he was a finalist for the National Book Award at the Pulitzer and Pulitzer 2 so I want to tell you what other stories do you have got I want to go to such a great one so this is the one that I hope. Winds up in Ken Burns' film Franklin was in Paris when ballooning began this was the time when the hot air balloon had just been invented and that was very tentative and there were lots of crashes that bears a lot of resemblance to our American space program but Franklin was at one of the 1st manned missions in Paris and he was standing in a large group and observing all of this and the balloon got caught up in some tree limbs and they had a hard time getting into the air and finally it began to kind of drift off course but up it went and everyone was thrilled of course. This was as exciting to the people of 784 as Alan Shepard's flight. Is suborbital flight in 1961 of John Glenn a year later in his 3 orbit flight around the planet and so Franklin was watching this with his usual deep fascination and man next to him said Yeah interesting but what's the use of them to which Franklin replied What's the use of a newborn baby that is not something what's the use of a newborn but I mean it's a stunning thing for him to say because you know what Jefferson would have said would have written the letter and it would have said you know the beginning of these sorts of technologies are often setbacks and we must honor those who are the pioneers and even things that fail are important in science because I think so much of that comes from his background as a printer and he Franklin's Yes and an editor who get to the point you know nail it tell a funny story do a piece of wit and Jefferson doesn't have that by just by Franklin standards Jefferson is ponderous he's not ponderous by any other standard but he would have written an earnest thoughtful missive or a letter about this whereas Franken just said What's the use of a newborn baby and nailed it because of course that's true. That's true of every technology I mean we talked to briefly with Jefferson I think last week about how hard it was for Jefferson to sit through the editing of the Declaration of Independence but he went to Franklin 1st and said What do you think because he trusted Frank it's pretty surprising the amount of changes that Franklin put in more than we think they were and they're all good yeah but of course the Great One was we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable change to we hold these truths to be self-evident this is something about Franklin this kind of genius this willingness to tell the funny story my favorite Franklin story comes up at the end of Brand's book after 4 months of secrecy writing the constitution he also hinted at the door by a matron of Philadelphia who demanded to know what these 4 months of secret meetings had produced and he answered a republic madam if you can keep it I read the books I had some doubts about that story it had a slight feel of being apocryphal So I went back and looked it up with turns out it's true it wasn't necessarily at the door but it happened soon maybe at a dinner party maybe at a salon a woman did ask Frank and it was copied down by James McHenry who became an important figure in the next generation so we know this happened but there's another story too as you know from that the end of the Constitutional Convention and this is back to kind of the raconteur he said you know this whole time I've been kind of looking at that chair up on the diocese and there's this like oh there's a car of sun and it's a half of it's above the horizon half of it's below the horizon so all this these months when we've been sitting I've been watching that chair and I've been asking myself what does it signify and is it a rising sun or is it a setting sun and he said now that we're finished I rather think it's a rising sun. Perfect may not have actually occurred we think it did but it's so Franklin you know using this metaphor telling a story it's not earnest and direct the way Jefferson would be it's convincing by way of a story and Franklin was one of the great masters in history of doing this but these men had a national purpose they did and they some of them were able to see beyond their own spectacles their own bifocals and Franklin was one of them so what you're looking for in leaders and it just breaks your heart to think of then and now and I don't just mean the current administration but you want to people that lift the country John f. Kennedy saying we can be more our destiny and all had of us I said I watch that we need to go to your essay but I watched part of the current debates recently and. At the end they all summarize in turn to the person watching with me and I said you know play Jenkinson has got it right if you want to win a nomination you need to sing the song of America a song of Jefferson and it's right and so that the great ones are the ones that say we can be more we can be better we can lift ourselves we can be extraordinary We can read new we can we can find it interesting creativity not a partisan No there's no I mean he any part of the great ones are the ones that did that and Franklin could see beyond the end of his spectacles and he wanted what was best for this country and at the Constitutional Convention he wanted to suggest that they address slavery and he talked about it privately with some of his friends and they said no you know we're just barely going to get the thing anyway if you bring that up. It'll shatter its commonality with Jefferson too I think it's knowing the timing and what you can get done but I just fell in love with Franklin While preparing for this Ken Burns thing and I'm glad that you find him so admirable So how could you know there's a down there's a dark side to Frank on which we have gone into really family relations weren't great and there were some other things but well the most part amazing that he lost his son Frankie and he didn't give him a vaccine while he blamed himself he said I'll never feel fail again to be an advocate of vaccination are you listening American well apparently loses a child you always feel your 2nd and 3rd guess yourself out of the rest of your life and so did he but anyway we do need to go to the say this week so which is about blooming in our time great and in national purpose so with that I would say sleep well Hayden I think you it's now time for this week's Jefferson watch Thank you David as you probably know the People's Republic of China has a serious and robust moon landing program late this year or early next China is prepared to land a probe on the moon that will dig up some rock samples and then return them to this planet China has made it clear that it intends to send men and women to the moon soon and this j.f.k. Said return them safely to Earth so let's say the China pulls off a human lunar landing mission sometime in the next few years it is at least possible that the People's Republic might try to do something even more impressive than our July 1969 achievement perhaps they would land the manned mission on the dark side of the moon or at one of the poles or perhaps the landing team would spend an extended period perhaps even weeks on the lunar surface all of the American news channels interrupt regular programming to break that news here's my question how would America respond. How would our news media respond how would the pundit sphere respond I would members of Congress respond how would our allies and adversaries across the globe respond how would the administration in power respond what do you think what's more likely that we would freak out as we did when the Soviets lob Sputnik into Earth orbit on October 4th 1957 or that we would throw our national will and resources into a Manhattan style project to get back to the moon and beyond perhaps all the way to Mars or that we would shrug our shoulders as a people not without some disquiet without any panic or emergency response what do you think I can tell you what happened in 1957 and I'd say we freaked out but it was infinitely more serious than that the Cold War was at its height the United States and the Soviet Union thought they were locked in the contest for national survival Nikita Khrushchev boasted that the West could not keep up and he had declared in Moscow on Nov 18th 1956 we will bury you the Soviets taunted that President Eisenhower's grandchildren would grow up in a Communist America because it was clear that capitalism was in its death throes disgusted with America's lackluster performance in space former Manhattan Project scientists George r. Price wrote in Life magazine that each of the 2 superpowers quote is apt to get the things that values most and so we will probably continue to have the world's best t.v. Comedians and baseball players and in a few years Russia will have the world's best teachers and scientists unquote on the day of Sputnik Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson said what happened this morning is one of the best publicized and most humiliating failures in our history a New York congressman said I want to see this country mobilized to a war time basis because we are at war I want to see schedules cut in half I want to see what NASA says it's going to do in 10 years cut down to 5. And Senator Lyndon Johnson said I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a communist moon it was not really about space exploration the Soviet rocket the put Sputnik 2 into orbit on November 3rd 1957 was large enough to deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere on earth that made the United States vulnerable to a 1st strike nearly instantaneously Soviet nuclear capacity was no longer a matter of speculation our ham radio operators could track the beeping of those i.c.b.m. Delivered Sputniks as they whizzed over the North American continent but the crisis wasn't just about nuclear brinksmanship the United States had been the world leader in science technology invention and innovation for so long that it seemed unthinkable that primitive Russia barely emerging from Tolstoy's world of serfdom program and famine could have caught up with America and yet it was true the Russians put the 1st satellite in space the Russians put the 1st man in space the Russians put the 1st woman in space the Russians perform the 1st spacewalk outside an orbiting capsule Meanwhile America's rockets had a habit of blowing up on the launch pad if the Soviets really were striding ahead of the United States that meant that the Communist East had caught up with the capitalist west maybe a command economy without the need for congressional committees majority rule federal court review without the requirement of competitive bidding and so on was actually superior to what the free world with all of its cumbersome checks and balances and its need to win popular approval for major government projects could achieve at least in these major engineering ways. The geo political thinkers who wrestled with this shocking development also wondered if emerging post colonial societies in Africa Asia and South America would now choose to align themselves with the Soviet system rather than ours because it seemed to many that the Soviets were winning the race for world supremacy that was the mindset of the American establishment then and it soon became in the mindset of the American people but we all know the Cold War is over we just celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down the west one neither Russia nor China is communist anymore there is no serious Communist threat in the world the question now is whether the people or the leaders of the United States regard the People's Republic of China as an axis tensile threat according to economists China's economy will surpass that of the United States sometime in the next decade and India may surpass the United States by 2035 China ranks 3rd in the world in overall military strength and already has a larger navy than the United States China is investing heavily in gross infrastructural projects all over the planet in Africa South America the Pacific even here in the United States China has many internal problems but nobody who studies international relations fails to realize that the People's Republic is making a serious run at regional and perhaps world Gemini while we watch the car dash ins and debate concussion protocols in the n.f.l. Does this matter it doesn't seem so at the moment we don't even have a rocket that can put a human in space we have to let the Russians loft our astronauts to the International Space Station I find that humiliating I find it appalling and unacceptable that we now have to beg rides into orbit from a nation that does what it can to undermine America's democracy and its place in the world. John f. Kennedy believed that the United States must win what he called the long twilight struggle because it would determine whether we would survive as a free society he was prepared as he put it in his 1st inaugural address to and I'm quoting Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill that we shall pay any price bear any burden meet any hardship support any friend oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty here's my question Jefferson our listeners what would you think we should do in the face of a Chinese or Russian manned moon landing maybe it doesn't matter this is not 1957 maybe our parents and grandparents over reacted back then in the heart of the Cold War Maybe a moon landing is no longer the measure of national greatness since we have weapons that are infinitely more sophisticated than what could be lifted by a Soviet i.c.b.m. Maybe we should stop thinking about those sort of gross infrastructural economies perhaps a national panic over a Chinese moon landing would be nothing more than playing old tapes and 8 track tapes created in the age of the Edsel Ford Elvis 45 rpm records and Ozzie and Harriet that was then and this is now still I believe these things very strongly 1st China is a much bigger threat to the United States than most American citizens understand those who are willing to let the United States slip into 2nd or 3rd class status as a nation have not I believe done the hard reading 2nd whatever precipitated at the American space program was one of the greatest achievements not only in the history of the United States but in the story of humankind the Cold War may have launched those rockets but what they represent is not victory in a geo political contest so much as the pivotal moment when humans left the home planet to explore the universe beyond. 3rd national prestige is as important as national power I feel honored to be a citizen of the nation that put man on the moon in 1969 and I hope to see it happen again during my lifetime in fact I hope I live long enough to see us land on Mars but I don't actually expect that because we've gone from J.F.K.'s ask not what your country can do for you to us lovingly hedonist materialist consumerist society with no agreed upon national aspirational goals if you doubt me name one national goal we all agree on in 2019 we can't even agree on polio vaccination 4th I don't speak for you but I know I will feel a profound sense of shame when China lands its cars Minot's on the moon. I'm quite Jenkins and we'll see you next week for another exciting edition of The Thomas Jefferson. The Thomas Jefferson hour is brought to you each week by Dakota sky education the program is distributed nationally by Prairie Public President Thomas Jefferson lived from 17432826 and this program presents his view as President Jefferson is portrayed by the award winning humanities scholar and author Clay s. Jenkinson to obtain a copy of this or any show for a $12.00 donation please call 7015750727 this program is also available online at Jefferson our dot com and on Apple podcasts if you'd like to correspond with President Jefferson or submit a question for him to answer on the program please visit the Web site at Jefferson our dot com The Thomas Jefferson ours produced at my coach a recording studios in Bismarck North Dakota Bach cello suite number 3 and c. Major by Steven Swinford thank you for listening please tune in again next week for another thought provoking historically accurate program through the eyes of Thomas Jefferson. My name is Lance Harvey the c.e.o. Of fluorite plumbing heating and cooling and we've been in business 12 years we've grown substantial about 40 percent per year every year we're expanding into new markets throughout southern Colorado care system is broadcast into new markets that we're trying to reach we believe that our mission is in line with n.p.r. Mission goods which is to bring quality services that are the best out there to learn more about underwriting called 719-473-4801 n.p.r. And bringing you live streaming testimony during the House impeachment inquiry in a president Donald Trump you can access all our lives streams online. And listen to see for continued news and analysis throughout the day this is Southern Colorado's n.p.r. Station k. Or c c k or c c h d Colorado Springs case e.c.c. La hunta Starkville n k w c c f.m. Woodland Park streaming at k. Or c c dot org This. Is the Ted Radio Hour. Each week groundbreaking Ted talks to Ted Ted Technology Entertainment Design design is that really what Stanford should never know to the delivered at Ted conferences around the world gift of the human imagination we've had to believe in impossible for its true nature of reality beckons. Just beyond those talks those ideas that kept it for radio. From n.p.r. . I'm Guy Raz Coming up we believe treatment starts with being aware of what is happening in your own body let's make no mistake there needs to be more hospitals we have to think about the world from which patients come we'll gets things done we're going to face some hard times but we're going to make change and get through it this episode accessing better health 1st this news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Louise Schiavone lawmakers are preparing for this week's House vote on 2 articles of impeachment against President Trump and P.R.'s Mara Liasson reports the stage is being set for a Republican led Senate trial the full House will vote on Wednesday on 2 articles of impeachment one that President Trump abused his power by asking a foreign government to announce a corruption investigation into one of his top 2020 rivals and the 2nd that the President obstructed Congress by flatly refusing to honor subpoenas for documents and witnesses the vote in the House Judiciary Committee was 23 to 17 strictly along party lines when the full House votes no Republicans are expected to vote to impeach but a handful of Democrats are expected to break ranks and vote no Mara Liasson n.p.r. News Washington the un climate summit in Madrid ended today going down in history as the longest meeting in 25 years of annual climate talks despite hopes of strong action against climate change at a critical time the final agreement delayed an important decision Lynsey Patterson has more working far past Friday's deadline negotiators clews the u.n. Climate summit with what many call a weak agreement for action on climate change the meeting was meant to provide a road map to ambitious goals for countries to cut emissions beginning in 2020 but negotiators could not agree on how to regulate carbon markets which put a price on emitting carbon dioxide that topic has been shelved for next year's talks the final document calling countries to step up their pledges to cut greenhouse gases they also designate funds to compensate the most vulnerable countries for damage from extreme weather events related to climate change for n.p.r. News I'm Lindsey Patterson in Barcelona the EFI.