Legislative and judicial and executive. But there is a fourth factor. And when we stand up to say no more, when we say there is a person right there doing the right thing we will get behind them then make sure that attitude becomes potent and decisive. When someone reads about Margaret Chase smith and says thats what i willwh do somebody in the government right now it will happen out of the necessity to survive we will expect that. I believe and you write we are centrist nation basically a country where 30 or 40 or 50 percent of the people are in the middle and want government to get something done. We aint doing it. That doesnt mean we wont. We have come through very hard times and baffling times and pessimistic times. And inappropriate behavior with the part of leadership but we have come to thembu all and very often when we do come through these difficult times the dark clouded sky times, we were better off for having done it. People talk about it was a simpler time. No itt wasnt. It never wise. That things have never been so bad or foreboding. Yes they have. If you dont understand that then you dont understand the reality of ourth story. I like to point out the influenza epidemic which my parents and your parents went through in 1,918,500,000 americans died of that disease they didnt know where it came from, if it would ever go away or how to cure it. If that were to happen today given the size of our populationon proportionate 1,500,000 people would die in less than one year. Now imagine that was on the nightly news every night we would be even more terrified of it would be next of our family to die the depression and the civil war horrible times. But we came through them because we had the face the word and could and we understood nothing of consequence was ever accomplished alone. It has to be a b joint effort. An introduction you write the fundamental decency the tolerance and insistence on truth and the goodheartedness of the American People are they are still plainly and then you added the 2004 speech that 90 percent of americans shaream those values. How does that square with what we did in the election last november . This is not an answer but part of the answer. Lets not forget in the popular vote, Hillary Clinton one by almost 3 million votes. So it isnt as though it was a landslide. [applause] and donald trump one by a very narrow margin. We have several major problems obviously. One is the poisonous effect of money in politics that members of congress are dialing for dollars half of their time every day. The fact that we are a nation of spectators to sit around and watch things all the time we watch television, athletic events, let somebody else entertain us. We dont do things as much as wes should. We are not making things on her own and to help solve these problems. Thats not true for everybody of course we are immensely generous we are immensely philanthropic. We care sincerely and with fervor about education still and we should be infinitely proud of what we have achieved the last 200d years in the way the greatest universities of the world. Yes cost of gotten out of hand but there are no institutions of Higher Learning anywhere on earth comparable to our own and never has been in all of history. This is an immensely admirable and important accomplishment. Just as it is that we make advances in medicine such as no one ever imagined. And future historians looking back would say the politics and military and political upheavals all over the world are important but look what was happening in medicine in our lifetime. We were just looking at the diseases john kennedy or mrs. Kennedy oris rose kenned kennedy, John Kennedys mother put on a file card that he had had as a child. And also those that had infantile paralysis. That doesnt even exist anymore. Scarlet fever not to mention dna or the successful transplant of organs. We are spoiled. We have been given so much we take it for granted that we should be grateful and making our teachers he rose and we should be celebrating. [applause] we should have major awards and statues in our towns for the Great Teachers that have shaped the lives of so manyap people i feel our teachers are doing the most important work of any of us and we should get behind them to make sure they understand we are for them. [applause] being married to an educator i second that. [applause] before i leave the subject of our current president , what do you think kennedy would think of trumps actions . Of trump . [laughter] we all know. He would be embarrassed. He would be appalled. He wouldnt believe it. Now. Weve never had anything like this happen in the country. No one even remotely so inappropriate for the responsibilities of the presidency in the job. Never. [applause] and virtually every day he make sure we know its worse than we thought. K [laughter] it is as if we put someone in the pilot seat was never flown a plane and who doesnt think its important to know how to fly the plane. [laughter] hes just a little surprised at how much more complicated it is. [laughter] l of the fact the fellow who will solve all of our healthcare problems discovered its complicated i was a history major and one of the things that always struck me was a differing prism through which history is seen and social historians and economic historians political, demographic Natural Resources and it goes on and on but whatever prism you look through youug see history differently in your mind what kind of historian are you . Imm not. Im not i have no degrees in history or studied history the way i would as an academic. Im a writer who took up writing about real people and events that really happened in my job was to tell that accurately as possible. With the basic conviction that history is human. Its about people and the Human Potential and limitations and good people and bad people and the whole mix and stories that really happened. Barbara had a great influence on me so there is no trick to teaching history effectively. Tell stories. That is what i have tried to do. I also tried to bring down front and center stage people who have been in the background more than they deserved like john adams and the builders of thee Brooklyn Bridge of those who had success at panama. And women like Abigail Adams and the wife of the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge and now the sister of the two right brother brothers, without whom i dont think they would have succeeded and shes never got an adequate credit for that and i hope my book does that and brings her to the point where she is recognized not only important but interesting and admirable. Im also struck how history gets revised over the years that there are people who are seen as he rose and dont fare as well in the historians eyes and a comeback with the renaissance how is kennedy bearing up . Very well but were only ate a point we can only pass judgment truman said you have to wait 50 years for the dust to settle and he will begin because its not just to went before him but who follows him and how does he compare and what are the consequences of those decisions he made were didnt make . We need to look at the importance of the decisions they didnt make as they did the decision eisenhower made not to go into vietnam or adams made not to go to war with france which was catastrophic if we had done so in this was a part of it the problem with kennedy it is cut off so soon very rarely do we take a president as serious as the others only serving one term he didnt even serve one term but yet look at the mark he left on a sense of who we are. As reading the volumes from robert caro of johnson, it is interesting you really have to look at thehe kennedy presidency that follows because johnson who might not have been inclined to be ideologically attuned really took the agenda to heart. Yes indeed and it is amazing in many respects how johnson could do things that kennedy could not have dones. It would hard to find two men more different. You say you interviewed 11 president s . Nine. I didnt get john quincy adams. [laughter] i interviewed seven or six. I have gotten to know those through the research i have don done. What strikes me is how different they are from one another. Really different. Jimmy carter compared c to george h. W. Bush or bill clinton. And some of them in my view deserve more focus and attention and the way that my instinct is that gerald ford deserves more attention than he has received. He deserves a first rate biography if you think all that happened in a very brief time he was president and if you think of what he coped with. They tried to kill him twice, his wife suffering fromuf alcoholism and i was here with the profiles in Courage Panel the year we gave the award because of his pardoning nixon and when he did that he knew it would probably cost him reelection but he did it anyway and it did the right thing and saved us grief and contentious behavior on the parts of all people of all goals. But the big difference today is if you take a look at gerald ford and i discovered this working on harry truman the volume of material you have to deal with as a researcher andas biographer is overwhelming otherwise you just skim through this material what is in this collection here could keep one doing research for a full lifetime and never get through all of it. Not that that is not an importance but it is a staggering mountain to try to climb. Everyy ebook of the kind that i write and others of biography and history is a jointff effort because you have editors and copy editors and librarians and specialist you want to intervie interview. When you see those acknowledgments they are not just there to tip your hat to your friends but they all contributed enormously to the results of the books and for one more point we have the problem are not teaching history as well as we should or requiring history as a course that is required in college and universities anymore. 80 percent of colleges require no history to graduate and wthats wrong. I believe in required courses because for one thing i think itss important america at that stage in life should understand some things are required. D. [laughter] surprise surprise. [laughter] but the satisfaction that comes from working with good people such as those in this library or having the help not just what they know that their ideas and suggestions on which path to take are invaluable importance and should never be underestimated. And right now we have some of the finest writers ever writing marvelous history and biography and they are reaching a very large audience and that is encouraging. People like robert caro and many others. With superlative documentary films being made and broadcast by pbs and other networks all of that is important in part because so many people today reach the age of 45 or 50 and say i dont know as much history as i ought to know i will read that book or watch that documentary tonight. Talk about how it is revise revised, you are a proud son of yale im a proud son of princeton but because of his background and princeton has h gone through agonies to figure how to depict Woodrow Wilson who is so closely associated with the college s. Now there are statues in the south with those civil war leaders to the consternation of those who live in the south. What kind of revisionist history . Are those proper because somebody did something thats no longer acceptable as being virtuous like owning slaves. How much you have to rename including the capital of the country and take down the washingtonou monument. I would much rather see us raise statues or rename buildings or monuments to those who did not own slaves and did so contrary to the moment and most importantly john adams the only founding father a president who never owned a slave out of principle and then next president in line was his sonig john quincy there are no great buildings named for either of them no great statues for either taking the statues down in the south is the right thing to do because most all of those statues were put up during the jim crow era. Wasnt done at the time of the civil war but the early 20th century. They were really saying that those that believe in inequality of racial citizenship are professing where we stand on this. I would not have renamedot calhoun college. I certainly wouldnt take wilsons name off of the buildings of princeton if that was my decision and i dont want us to start renaming cities and towns. Im more interested in giving more attention to people we have ignored than getting too workeded up to give attention to the wrong people. You talk about the importance of history but yet we are in a situation in this country where things are changing so fast like the dislocation of the job market is incredible and those who say in 20 years half the jobs or more that people occupy have not been invented yet. Think of that. I was on the board of my college for eight years. And the graduating seniors would stand up as we conferred the degrees would look at them. When i went on the board the first graduation was 2007 there was ath handful in Computer Technology when i left in 2015 the number wasas huge the number of engineers that stand up is growing exponentially. Bill gates said if you are student in college you should study artificial intelligence, intelligence, energy or bioscience he talk about social sciences or humanities. The pertinence of those things given how fast things are changing do those stand up or should kids be more worried as they graduate whats changing and how to adapt or preparere themselves for a job market so uncertain . I may be stuck in my ways and out of rhythm with the realities of modern hightech society and i confess i dont know how to use a computer or terk it i use the manual typewriter. [applause] what kind of a phone do you have . [laughter] do you talk into a pop tart . Are you ready . Where in the hell is it . I am way ahead of all of you. They are it is. [laughter] they tell me about all of the things that can do i just wanted as a telephone. [laughter] but i think the decline of the emphasis of the humanities is a serious mistake. I really do because lets suppose you come out of university with a degree in chemistry or hightech communications and that might get you a good job rightig away that might lead you into an important and constructive career. But if you come out of college knowing how to use the english language you will be a rare bird of great value. Truly. Almost half of the law schools and country today not require incoming freshmen who are all College Graduates to take a course in basic writing because they dont know how to write a presentable letter or l report or analysis. They dont know how to express themselves in ourn language its not only a handicap but a risky trend in any kind of Civilized Society and just incapable of using the english language tong express yourself in words and also have no sense of our country or nation but really to be held back from serious drawbacks to the qualifications and the leadership in all fields. It must be encouraged and a lot of us you are working hard to bring back the humanities. And with good reason. Think of the jobs that are open to people who can use the englishh language you know how to write and think words are what we think with and those vocabularies are declining with specific proof they have lower vocabularies and less than our generation has. Words are what we think with and thinking is important by the way. [laughter] and john adams kept marvelous diaries. Nobody would dare keep a diary anymore it could be subpoenaed and used against you in court. [laughter] at home thinking. Can you imagine if somebody in washington today were to write that in his or her record of what they did that day . [laughter] i will add one addendum that reflects the profession from which i come it is something of a lost art very good friend of mine the past president dad princeton i had dinnernd recently it was about to have presentations for Phd Candidates and she said to were legibly written and three were not very good. That the addendum i would add is the ability to present your argument verbally. Yes. Absolutely to defend your argument orally Warren Buffett said anybody who is a good speaker and to speak publicly you will make 50 percent more in your lifetime then if you cant do that. It worked for me. Lord knows that i could have done its important so with the basic grounding in the humanities and social sciences because the critical thing is that you are adaptive to a changing environment. And from one of John Kennedys speeches that could not be more valid to todays situation and this is the man who is new to the job and the proper objective of education i look forward to the reward achievement in the arts as business and that these commands respect throughout the world this country cannot be afford to be material rich and spiritually poor are it is the Great Unifying humanizing experience. Far from being atr distraction its very close to the center of the purpose the test of the quality of a civilization i am certain that after those have passed over the cities we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats of battle but to the human spirit. [applause]. Dont make a speech in my you make your way to the microphon microphone, two quick questions. The most interesting person youve ever met or researched . Tom stars who just died within the last few months. He should have been a name everybody knew he changed history and the very few way human beings ever do but yet largely unknown and was the position to successfully make the first double Organ Transplants successful and to change the whole realm and to kept at him if i have a name in the book its a line i quote in the beginning from George Washington it couldnt be more true the time was interested in everything. Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages you have to keep at it and you dont give up if you get knocked down you dont whimper and whining get back up and continue. Is something we all need to be reminded of by the example set of our own country. Man named cutler that i talk about with the commencement speech at Ohio University and mr. Cutler was a teacher in ipswich and also a doctor and a lawyer in practice those professions and he was the man who convinced the Continental Congress in the summer of 1787 before we had a constitution to create the northwest