So we can get your questions recorded as well as our authors answers. Lastly, at the end, if you could take a moment, fold up your chairs, lean them against something solid, that will give you more space for the book signing and help us get back to bookselling, all of that good stuff. Welcome to politics and prose. My name is abby fennewald. I run all of our events in the story. If you are not familiar with p p, i would definitely invite you to take a moment and sign up for our weekly email or pick up our may calendar of events, see Everything Else we have going on. We are now operating inside three busboys and poets locations around town, and we are going to be doing events in all those spaces as well, so we are doing more than ever. I would hate for you to miss out on any of it. With that, onto why you are all here. We are so happy to have eric burns back with us i think we said you have been here four times before to talk about his new book, 1920 the year that made the decade roar. This is absolutely not your typical history book, and he is not your typical academic sort of historian. He brings his journalists eye to the topic, just as he has done with his previous books. He is a former nbc news correspondent and was the former host of fox news watch and has won an emmy for media criticism. In his new book, he strips away a lot of the glamour that surrounds our concept of the 1920s and is able to really show more about what everyday life was like through talking more and more about people who maybe we do not remember as much of the history books but were important in their day. So im going to turn it over to him to tell you more about all that. We are so happy to have him back here at politics and prose. Please join me in welcoming eric burns. [applause] i do not drink coffee. I do not like coffee, and i always thought the reason was the taste. And it may be instead my lack of coordination. So i would like to ask your forbearance if i stumble somewhere. I am a flawless speaker, but i may just be done in by a coffee stain. 1920 was a remarkable year in and of itself, not just because of the events of that year, but because events of that year were harbingers. They were harbingers of events that would happen later in the decade, later in the century, and even two events which happened in this century, two of the major events of this century. Thursday, september 16, 1920, Trinity Church on wall street. The final bell from the tower sounds the noon hour. At that precise instant, a horse that had been standing in front of the jp morgan bank, which was across the street from the Trinity Church, explodes. A horse explodes into so many pieces that none could ever be found. I will not be questioned. The horse had been attached to a cart and inside the cart was the equivalent of 100 pounds of dynamite, in addition to 500 pounds of castiron sash weights, which, when the explosion occurred, had the effect of shrapnel. It was lunch hour. Lunch hour had just begun. Wall street was full of hungry and hurrying men and women in the Financial Institute who were going to restaurants, who were going to park benches to sit and eat their lunches. 38 were killed, more than 400 injured, and a few of those who were injured would die in a hospital within a week. It was the first terrorist attack ever in the United States, and it was the worst until Timothy Mcveigh detonated the lives of 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995. Legislators back in 1920 started talking about homeland security. They did not call it homeland security, but they started talking about making it more difficult to pass through the porters of ellis island. Who set off the bomb . Why . Were they ever caught . 1920 was the only year in which two amendments to the constitution of the United States took effect. The first was the 18th amendment, which made it illegal to sell, buy, or manufacture but, curiously enough, not to drink alcoholic beverages. Of course, we know it as prohibition. It started on january 16 at 12 01 a. M. It ended, for all practical purposes, on january 16 at 12 02 a. M. Many people made their own ersatz versions of the beverages they used to know and love so well, most commonly beer, which people called homebrew. For this reason, prohibition became the greatest doityourself project in the history of this country, and it brought the family closer together than it had ever been before. A poem from the time mothers in the kitchen washing out the jugs. Sisters in the pantry bottling the suds. Fathers in the cellar mixing up the hops. Johnnys on the front porch watching for the cops. [laughter] Americans Still respected the law generally, but this one specifically was just too contrary to human nature to be obeyed on a widespread basis. Among those who dissipated were rotary Club President s, pastors, doctors, veterans of the great war, and, on one bizarre occasion in our nations capital, a lawmaker himself. In the lobby of the Office Building of the house of representatives, a congressman named Fiorello Laguardia invited friends, fellow legislators, tourists, reporters, newsreel cameramen, and even, perversely, the Capitol Hill Police force to watch a demonstration. Here is how historian Geoffrey Perret describes the demonstration. Laguardia blended two parts malt tonic, heretofore of interest only to anemics and easy to obtain at any drugstore, to one part near beer. That was a beer with minimal alcoholic content and thus it was legal under prohibition, although some reports from the time say that the taste was Something Like dishwater left in the sink overnight. Laguardia stirred the ingredients and allowed a few seconds to pass to heighten the suspense. Then he drank up and licked his lips. The camera zoomed in. A brewmaster was standing by to sample the mixture. He pronounced it delicious. I think he was on laguardias payroll. Laguardia started passing on samples of his Second String beer, and he even said that the police should try it, and he had people in the crowd pass glasses back to the police, who were confounded about whether they should arrest this man who was breaking the law. He was a congressman. Everybody broke the law. They did not know what to do. So they fled. Chances are, at least some of them ended up in their favorite speakeasies, drowning their frustrations for the embarrassment that laguardia had caused them with a better quality of beverage than the congressman had produced himself. In addition to near beer, industrial alcohols were legal under the 18th amendment because they were used in various manufacturing processes. They were indispensable to various manufacturing processes, but as Beverage Additives industrial alcohols were poison. They were blended with real alcohol to increase quantities and thus increase profits. In addition, they increased deaths. In some cases, to sell bootleg hooch to people who could not afford better was to commit murder. In the words of some people, government sanctioned murder. One of the many destructive products that was used at the time, concocted by gangsters, was called jamaica gin or jake. If you drink too much jake, there was not much of a chance you would die, but what it did somehow was weaken tendons in your ankle so that you could not walk normally. You walked as if you had a clubfoot. You were called a jake trotter or a jake stepper. Imagine this in studying the various recipes for jake, american scientists learned some of the principles that would lead german scientists develop nerve gases in world war ii. The Second Amendment that was passed in 1920 was surprisingly controversial and long overdue. It finally gave women the right to vote, despite bribes to the contrary that took place right out in the open, right up to the last minute. There were occasions when, in the middle of the aisles of various legislative houses, state legislative houses, you could see a lobbyist give a handful of bills to a legislator who would then nod his head. He was signifying that his opposition to suffrage was now bought and paid for. But momentum trumped money in this case, and the 19th amendment was added to the constitution in the summer of 1920, ironically just a few months before the First National election in which women would vote. Women joined men and they had no choice in voting out of office the first female president of the United States, and so far the only female president. She was not really the president , but she was the president de facto, lets say, as opposed to du jour. Most americans did not even know about it. As i look out here, i see most americans dont know about it today. The Political Community in washington knew about the woman in the white house. Senator albert fall of new mexico was enraged. We have petticoat government, he said, and the Diplomatic Community in washington knew. The french ambassador to the United States reported back to parents that he was dealing with mademoiselle president. The greatest misunderstanding about 1920 is that it was the first year of the most carefree and wealthy decade we have ever had in this country. Well, it was not carefree because Americans Still lived under the shadow of the great war, which of course is what world war i was called then, a conflict at once so brutal and nonsensical that we could not help but fear it would break out again. As the case of the exploding horse demonstrated, this time and might even break out on our own soil. As the case of the exploding horse demonstrated, maybe it already had. So 1920 was not a carefree year and it certainly was not a wealthy one, unless you were one of the socalled robber barons and their allies. Keep in mind this was their era, the era of morgan, mellon, rockefeller, the vanderbilt descendents, among many others. The era of men who made millions of dollars from the bent backs and aching shoulders of men and women and children, the era of vicious employers, helpless employees. Some of the men had recently returned from fighting a war that enriched the robber barons all the more since it was they who had manufactured some of the arms, ammunitions, and airplanes for the allies. At the same time, other men, who were not nearly so fortunate, had been part of the socalled great internal migration, which consisted mostly of africanamericans departing from the cotton fields of the south for the factories of the north, desperate for a better life but finding a life just as punishing, the hours just as long, the pay just as minimal, and the future just as depressing. It is not easy to calculate, but considering the minimal income tax that existed at the time, it is probably true that the earnings gap between the richest of americans and the poorest of americans was greater in 1920 than it is today. Scott and zelda might have pranced through the fountain in new yorks plaza hotel, drunk and soaking wet and laughing hysterically, but the men who worked in steel mills and coal mines for a few dollars a week, the women who worked in sweatshops for a few coins a day, the young boys who got up in the middle of the night to deliver blocks of ice that weighed almost as much as they did, or the young girls who earned their pennies by spending 12 hours a day, six days a week, sewing collars onto blouses, forced to stand up and eat their lunches so they could keep working these people these people were the truer symbols of life in america in 1920 than scott, zelda, and the flappers. Carlo Pietro Giovanni guglielmo tebaldo ponzi, otherwise known as charles ponzi, was an immigrant to United States, and he was determined not to live the kind of life i have just described. He did not. There were times, however, when he might have been better off if he did. A few people actually made money from ponzis financial machinations, which, by the way, were legal when he began to offer his financial product. The initial ponzi scheme was misunderstood in several other ways, too, which i will mention in a few minutes. Before long, so much money was being made by a few people that a law was passed that made his dealings a criminal activity. When ponzi kept selling his now worthless paper, he became a crook and the ponzi scheme became a reality. Late in the 20th century, thanks to a man named bernie madoff, the scheme was reborn and in 2008 madoff went to jail for the rest of his life. I suspect i do not know, but i suspect that ponzis name might have been in the newspaper more in 2008 than it was in 1920. Most of us think that the ponzi scheme is a kind of chain letter, but its in its original form not that at all. Its much more complicated than that, and it involved postal rates in Different Countries in different parts of the world. I dont really understand it completely, and i wrote about it in a book. So if you buy the book and you come to that section, you may be assured that what i wrote is true. Its just that youll be confused, too. Bernie madoffs version of the ponzi scheme lasted almost a decade. Carlo ponzi didnt even last a year. Early in 1920, he was a small time hoodlum trying to impress his mama, who he loves dearly, his italian mama back home. He wrote her letters saying he was doing so well in america. He was doing better, becoming more successful all the time. Figuratively, the streets here really were paved with gold if you knew what streets to take. In fact, by the fourth of july in 1920, ponzi was a multimillionaire. Before the year was over, he was a jailbird. Things moved very quickly for this most famous of scam artists. But i have this surprise for you. You will not believe it now, but just wait. If you read 1920 the year that made the decade roar, by the time you finish, you will not despise charles ponzi. You will sympathize with him. You will feel for him. Charles ponzis story is one of the saddest tales of a crook, of a man, ever put to paper. In 1920, warren g. Harding, a republican senator from ohio, defeated james cox, the democratic senator from ohio, and some years later harding was voted the 29th best president in the history of the United States. You see whats coming, dont you . [laughter] at the time, america had had 29 president s. None, however, had presided over an administration as corrupt as hardings. One member of the administration was perhaps and this was a fellow whose office was next to that of the attorney general he was perhaps the leading bootlegger in washington and committed suicide when he feared that he might be exposed. A cabinet officer, a friend of hardings and a despicable man, was put in charge of veterans affairs, and he stole supplies from veterans hospitals. This is, you know, a year or two after the war. Veterans hospitals were full and needed their supplies as much as ever. He stole them, sold them for his own profit, and then, with hardings approval, escaped to europe. He was never prosecuted. His top assistant feared prosecution. He committed suicide. The attorney general was indicted for fraud. And albert fall, foe of petticoat government, was appointed secretary of the interior, whereupon, for a kickback, he sold military oil reserves to friends of his for private profit. The scandal was called teapot dome because of the shape of a rock formation under which most of the oil resided. Teapot dome was probably the most ignominious transgression against justice in American Government until 1972, when the first and greatest of the scandals ending in gate was revealed. Meanwhile, harding was setting records for adultery that would not be eclipsed until john kennedy came along. One day, a tour of the white house was being conducted and the visitors heard something that sounded like two people banging off the walls of a tiny janitors closet next to the president s office. Mops were sliding down the walls. Buckets were tumbling over. A male voice joined a female voice in a chorus of lustful panting. Usually, Janitorial Services do not inspire that degree of enthusiasm. [laughter] the tour guide asked his group to walk a little faster. They were happy to oblige. Now, the most important event of 1920, in my opinion, was also the most important event of the 20th century, in my opinion. It took place in a small shack on a roof of a factory just outside pittsburgh, pennsylvania. In that shack, the american mass media, of which there is no force more influential, began. What Radio Station kdka did on the first tuesday night in november of 1920 was broadcast a news event live. Never been done before. It was the hardingcox election returns. Neither the country nor the world would ever be the same again. Although few people could have imagined that radio would one day lead to something called television and no one could have imagined keeping up with the kardashians. [laughter] small towns were always thought of as the home of virtue, and then, in 1920, Sinclair Lewis wrote our town. And American Literature was never the same again. The stage was usually the home of entertainment that was fluffy and moralistic, and then, in 1920, Eugene Oneill won the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes with beyond the horizon. And the theater was never the same again. Poetry was the home of romance and bucolic scenery, and then, in 1920, t. S. Eliot and Carl Sandberg came along. And verse was never the same again. With the exception of some of irving berlins work, popular songs were insipid. They had titles like daddy, youve been a mother to me, when the moon shines on the moonshine, and who ate napoleons with josephine when napoleon was away . [laughter] real titles, real songs. Then, in 1920, out of nowhere, a woman who virtually no one had ever heard of named mamie smith not bessie, but mamie smith released the record crazy blues. It became, against all odds, the number one song in the country, an