Transcripts For CSPAN 20170217

Include i had a piece of information that bob woodward wanted. I didnt articulate to myself. But when i looked back and i asked myself why i did this bad and stupid thing. I think thats what it comes down to. Sunday night, Georgetown University professor talks about working as a researcher and government writer for Hillary Clinton and bob woodward in her ook. I resisted. I spoke in general terms what it was like being in the white house and i told them the story about being in the room during this unusual exercise. I told them you cant use it. There were only these two women in the room who were doing this. These two guests and one or two staffers and mrs. Clinton. If you use it, everybody will know that i was the source. And i was very worried about that. But i trusted them. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. For the next hour, American History tv exclusive. Our cities tour visits harrisburg, pennsylvania to learn more about its unique history. For five years we traveled to cities across the u. S. To explore their literary and historic sites. Atch more of our visits at cspan. Org citiestour. The election of 1840 was very much a see himinal election on all sorts of things. We spent the spring of 2016 talking about how contested the elections were and how critical it was to be there setting the rules. Ell, that happened here first. Lutheran in the church, which was the site of convention. Sorts of arty was all political views that agreed on one thing. Under the administration of president andrew jackson, executive power had gotten way out of control. And it was in fact thats where the name came from. They were opposed toll king george iii. So they were against king andrew i. Otherwise, they didnt agree on much. The whigs were made of the conservative faction in the country. Ats a little about of a misnoemer. The democrats were the hard money people and the whigs were the soft money people. The whigs were made up of it antiUnited States bank, antislavery, you had antinations thrown in into the mix. As i said, the greatest unifying factor of the party was in opposition to the expansion of executive power, that they wanted the predominant engine of the government to be Congress Rather than the presidency. Heir superstar of the whig party was henry clay, who had been speaker of the house. He had been secretary of state. And now was serving in the United States senate. He was a very car mass particular leader. He was the most popular politician of the whig. Worship. Otion voted on a y chose harrisburg, albeit nod to getting off the coastline, all the previous conventions had been held in baltimore, the antinations held a small one in philadelphia. This was a 100mile nod to the expansion of the country westward and secondly and the most important reason gets into the electoral map. The whigs if they were going to win the 180 election, they felt they had to have pennsylvania in their column. So this was a good way to get the ball rolling as it were and start making inroads in pennsylvania which had gone for jackson twice and for van buren once. When they decided to come to harrisburg, it was made as a point in the map and they came to discover that there is only one building in town that was large enough to hold it and that church. Ion lutheran the Original Church had burned down the year before. But this particular building had been completed and was able to host the whig convention. Members and er 235 politics was the theater. You would have a large number of locals coming in to watch the show. The interior of the church is different. The pew configuration would have been very much the same. You would have had your officers of the convention sitting up in the front, probably at a table and your delegates would be in the first rows behind them and at the very back, you would have the press and local citizenry. The convention was held in the first week of december. It convened on december 4 and ended on december 6. What makes this convention so special, it was the first time that from was more than one candidate being put forward for the nomination for the presidency of the United States. So while this convention in harrisburg wasnt the First National convention, it definitely was historic in that these delegates gathered here with a blank sheet of paper and had to set the rules and procedures for choosing a nominee for president of the ited states from amongal multiple people. Henry clay was the front runner, but there was opposition to that. William henry harrison, who was and t hero of the battle was a territorial governor, he was one of the organization candidates in 1836 when henry clay decided he didnt want to make the run again. And he was the largest go otegetter among the candidates. E person of general Winfield Scott who was a military officer and distinguished himself in upstate new york, there was internal strife right across the Canadian Border and scott earned kudos among the upstate new yorkers for his handling of keeping things on the right side of the border. Those were the three candidates that were put forward at this convention. It was henry clays nomination if he wanted it and there was a substantial lead in the delegate count. If it had been a straight up and down vote with each delegate voting its conscience, clay probably would have walked out of there as the nominee. But the anticlay forces came with a plan which would thwart him and would eventually in the result of harrison or scott. First thing they did was to set a rule that rather than everybody sitting out here on the floor casting their ballots, a committee would be formed, where each state could appoint up to three representatives who would go off andnominee in eache would cast their states entire votes which was a recognition of a bit of a herd mentality leaving the station, a snowball forceshat the anticlay thought might come into play on his behalf. Wherebyo passed a rule whoever had the most votes in the state delegation got that states entire votes. To put it in the modern context, it would have been a winner take all primary, rather than proportional representation. Clay had substantial minority support and a lot of the harrison delegation, so by taking these votes away from him , and awarding them to harrisburg or scott, by what became known as the unit rule, that put another 10 in henry clays ambitious balloon and eventually would lead to his undoing. There were a total of three ballots with a lot of maneuvering in between. The first ballot clay ended up with 103 votes, the majority was 128, even with bob iger cannery with how with the chicanery, almost unstoppable if the rules have not been changed. Harrison had 91. The second ballot things moved a little bit, one of the state that was not able to vote on the first ballot was michigan. Because they had three delegates and only two had arrived by them, the unit rules, a flat out time, nobody gets the vote tie, nobody gives the vote and the third michigan delegate showed up and voted for scott, after connecticut and michigan voted for scott, scott lived up to 68 and clay went down and harrison stayed at 91 votes, the delegates stayed solid. Chicaneryl than real taken to wife, scotts managers have been working on the ginia delegation which was had 20 delegates in change to try to get them to change to scott. They were coming close to succeeding, scott was a native losing steamay was and that would be a good place to go. At that point, a friend of harrison in the new york delegation, which was supporting scott, went to a gentleman you may remember if anybody saw the movie lincoln, stevens of pennsylvania, and gave him a letter from scott talking about how he was antislavery. The thought was, it gave the new york guy who passed the law deniability within his bosses, oh, i was just try to move pennsylvania by showing that scott was antislavery. Acyclic he was giving it to Patty Stevens because stevens would know what to do with it. What he did with it was take a stroll among the virginia delegation, drop the letter onto the floor, a piece of obviously private personal correspondence was discovered by one of the virginia delegates, him being a politician of course read it. And passed it along to his other virginia delegates, and that stopped the movement of the virginia delegations scott cold. At that point, what they would now call scotts path to the tmination was awarded hwarted. The harrison people were holding firm, no movement in all and none anticipated, they decided to throw their support to harrison and so harrison was nominated on the third ballot. To 90 and iss change for clay and scott was down to 16. Once harrison was nominated, back in the day, the ticket ballot, they wanted to find a clay supporter to balance the ticket. They were unable to do that. Were inthe clay people no way, shape, or form happy about the outcome. They were not of a mind to do any cooperating with the harrison folks. Was probablye roomsairs in one of the at the church, there were about 200 people bored out of their skulls listening to speeches and memorials from the citizens of new jersey and that sort of thing. They were given connor at that point, the convention was about to be a Runaway Convention with its filing out of control at all of that good work were would be for nothing someone on a clock on friday evening 9 00 on friday evening, they came up and announced harrisons nomination for president. But no Vice President ial nominee was chosen yet. At this point, a virginia delegate by the name of john tyler, who had served in the senate and moved into opposition to andrew jackson, was said to have burst into tears at the thought that his hero, henry clay, had not won the nomination. He denied that. Whether or not he burst into tears is a matter for conjecture. Thatast he did something had everybody turning around and saying, we could nominate tyler. Which eventually they did and the ticket of tippecanoe and 1840 too was born, the election was a watershed election, harrison was running against Martin Van Buren who was the handpicked successor of andrew johnson. And urine had been elected in , he, running for reelection had bad luck of having the economy goes south on him. Pretty much right after he dropped his right hand from taking the oath of office in 1837. The bubble finally burst. There were bad economic times. And which is another factor for being three candidates coming forward for the whig nomination because it looked like it was worth something. As it turns out, the election was a lot closer than it also appeared. Fortunateon was very that, after the nominee after the convention and his nomination, a democratic spaper in baltimore made a took a shot at him by saying that give him a pension of 1000, he would be content to sit by a fire drinking hard cider and reading moral philosophy for the rest of his days. Everybody was outraged except harrisburgeman and by the name of thomas elder who thought we can use this. And political spin was born. Putting harrison forward as the law cap and hard cider candidate as the log cabin and hard cider candidate. It spread like wildfire and what we would now term energizing the base was definitely born. It was said without much exaggeration, log cabins were everywhere, one commentator described it as one long party. It was lucky because they were so diverse to have that kind of base energizing. Here at the convention, the one thing they did not do is pass a platform. Their views were so diverse that they tried to pass a platform, they may still be here. They were the first real party to go forward to the American People saying, it will be terrific, believe me. Under the banner of tippecanoe and tyler too. This is our third takes their State Capitol in harrisburg the second one was the interim capital built in 1898 and 1899 and the third one was commissioned in 1901 and a from 1902 219 06, design and. Onstruction by Joseph Miller our building was designed in the american renaissance style, and italian building that tries to incorporate as many european architectural motifs and styles into it as possible inside and out, it has an astronomical amount of ornamentation both in here and all the goldleaf and, Principal Chambers are amazing, marble from the pyrenees and it is amazing work of art. We are at the western main entrance, that faces the susquehanna river toward state street. As you approach the exterior staircase, you walk into the center and the rotunda opens before you come it rises about 272 feet up to the top or the stature of commonwealth sets, 24 caret goldleaf and throughout. The lunette spaces was designed by apple in austin abbey would show an allegorical figure with a sense of realism, they have the allegorical figure of balkans depicted in the mural and blast furnaces. Blast furnaces pennsylvania iron and Steel Industry at the turn of the last century provided over by the roman god. The spirit of religious liberty has allegorical angels leading anchor change to the new world which represents pennsylvania as a bastion of religious freedom. Science revealing the treasures of the earth traces a mineral and industrial wealth of the commonwealth and the spirit of with as oil derricks Angels Holding flames up above. As you go up further, a railing and these large eightfoot tall windows that rise up and as you go up there will be the lantern which is about 270 feet in the air and has stars in the lantern which is up for the commonwealth statue sits on top of the dome. Most people ask about the green on the dome, they are actually red clay tiles but they have a green empire greenways, so they can from ohio, the entire roof line running up there is actually green tile and that is what joseph houston, he like the empire green instead of the red terracotta tile. The Senate Chamber, pennsylvania State Capitol building, three Principal Chambers in the building, the Senate Chamber is done in the french renaissance, each chamber has a unique architectural motif that it keeps. It is all part of the american renaissance, we have marble, artwork by Philadelphia Artist oakley, stained glass by William Bradley manning been, a unique piece of. 4 current goalie thing throughout the entire 24 caret goldleaf and throughout the entire ceilings and you will see the 24 caret goldleaf. Most of the furnishing and the Principal Chamber is a story to 1906, the desks are historical chairs and the front. The carpet is a reproduction the draperies come architecturally the goal was to incorporate as many european motifs and models as possible. It all stemmed from the 1893 chicago worlds fair where they started to put his monumental public buildings in the United States, joseph houston, the architect, saw that and he is taken the grantor and came back inspired and wanted to produce european buildings in the u. S. And that is where the design stems from. Oakley,freeze is my called International Unity and understanding and has a central figure, and that everything moves toward that, the arms of the art surrendering as they approached the day of unity and the slaves of europe being freed as they approach the veils of unity, it moves toward the center figure. Underneath, the creation of preservation of the union, the pennsylvania delegation and the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and on the other side, president clinton giving the gettysburg address. Lincoln giving me gettysburg address. And he came back before the senate at that time, she went into detail, great either with the senators, telling them what the representation or these murals work for them and the merrills put here to inspire the senators. We have moved from the Senate Chamber to the House Chamber. Pennsylvania house as 203 members versus the 50 members of the senate. The house is probably the most ornate room in the building, arguably, done in the italian renaissance versus the french renaissance of the Senate Chamber. At the time this capital was built, only 15 to 20 years where a y best probably would have been built in the commonwealth of pennsylvania and that is 1892 1910 which yielded a palace that is what houston called it and we still call it, pennsylvania palace of art because we were at the height of industry, at the height of capitalism, everything was being made and done in pennsylvania at the turn of the last century. It wanted to show its industrial commercial wealth and it did that through the capital building. All of the goldleaf and aluminum leaf and copper and Everything Else incorporated wanted to show that it was at the height of architecture and artistry, and partisanship, and that is what it shows to display through the walls of the capital. The chandeliers in this room, the largest once on the order of three tons per, the smaller ones weigh 1. 5 tons and they go up through the next floor through giant chains and turnbuckles, they are attached to the steel trusts of the roof so that they do not fall. The big chandeliers were done by henry potter Bronze Company out of new york, the smaller what we go like standards and some of the sconces were done by the pennsylvania Bronze Company which was located in philadelphia. The murals in the chamber, the has 34 identifiable figures from pennsylvania history with the allegorical genius of state later up in the top, william penn, benjamin franklin, morris, they are loosely grouped by famous religious figures in pennsylvania history, famous generals, explorers, philanthropists, and the like. The murals that flank this pinprick with the indians, Benjamin West did the original, that is a model. Abby did all of these murals, he morphed it into his own understanding of the treaty with the indians. The last one on the other side of the apotheosis is the first public reading of the declaration of independence through the steps of independence hall. The mural on the ceiling install the hours mural and that was painted by edwin austin abbey, originally joseph eason would incorporate a stainedglass dome into the ceiling but they decided in 1904 it would put another floor above that, we he had to move the dome and we will see that over at the Supreme Court chamber, they moved the dome over there and abbey created this mural, a 24 hours of the day from light to dark, it is allegorical made from light to dark and the zodiac signs depicted behind it. Joseph houston tried to pick as many pennsylvania artists at the time, abby was a native of philadelphia really an english expatriate, he lived in england for most of his adult life and did his adult life and it has worked there and send it back over. He has done a work for the boston public library, built the holy grail murals and houston solve those and really liked his work at since he was in pennsylvania he got the commission, he was supposed to do all the principal rooms and ended up doing the rotunda and also the House Chamber, then he got sick and passed away and Violet Oakley, the first female artist in the United States to do largescale decorative mural painting, did not complete but was given the commission for the senate and the Supreme Court chamber after the death of abbey. She did the majority of the work in the building, 43 murals over 25 years. We are in the supreme superior court chamber, this is part of the design of joseph houston plan for the capital that the real central portion of the fourth floor would have the Court Chambers, this is one of three philadelphia, pittsburgh, and harrisburg, one of three supreme and superior Court Chambers in which the court to meet. The Supreme Court was actually meant to be over the top of the House Chamber we believe and it was brought here as they were adding a fifth floor to the building so as the building was being constructed in 1906, they were running out of space and added more rooms on the top and moved the dome was already in production here. The green stained glass was done by offered gone with out of godwinlphia alfred out of philadelphia, it is lit from the inside, on cloudy days the dome is still lit up but allows Natural Light to come in. This room is the final room that artist file that oakley decorated, spending 25 years of her life producing work for the capital, the first was the first omission was in 1902, these works installed in 1927. She worked on the senate and Supreme Court at the same time. Aroundpleted the senate 1919, 1920 and went on to do with these works for seven years. You have Violet Oakley, this represents her idea of what the evolution of world law is. This is probably her most original because it starts with antiquity and works its way up through the 1920s which is the evolution of world law and International Law which, nathan world peace. The murals on this while since we are facing this way, william aackstone commentary is unique mural because that is the one, when you come in the door, the one you see facing, you see this imposing figure of blackstone sitting on the bench looking at you as you approach the chamber. The figure off to the other side is william penn seated, Thomas Jefferson quoted penn as what he termed the greatest lawgiver that the nation has known. Lined up behind him are famous humanist thinkers, john locke, and at the very top of the corner, Violet Oakley painted a andie of herself in that most people do not see that, she actually traveled to a library and did research, she asked the librarian for a history of law and he said there was not one, she said i will have to write one. She wrote one in terms of her paintings or what she wanted to produce. Which goes through biblical, hebrew, judaic, different evolutions of law and comes up through pennsylvania law, u. S. Law with John Marshall and world law. It is a very original work she has depicted. Capital preservations role is to actually care for the fine decorative arts, the historic and architectural fabric of the building, we were formed in 1902, we are a bipartisan legislative service committee. Our goal is really to protect the 640 rooms, the historic fabric, any of the artwork and architecture, that is what we deal with, the furniture, clocks, historic civil war flags , you name it, we are a little bit across the board and what we do and how we care for the building. And its upkeep. We hope visitors take away an appreciation for the monumental works that the commonwealth did an appreciation for the fine and that departs in america. It is one of just a few that is ornate as it is. We take great pride in keeping it that way. And in trying to ensure that rooms are not gutted and that there is an aesthetic there that we try to showcase that is the masterpiece that it is. Standing in the John Harris Mansion in harrisburg. This is the oldest house and what was the original harrisburg. Built in 1766 and we are supporting our 250th anniversary of the mansion, john harris the first, we usually call him the first raider come he came from york shire counting when in the 16 90s, and introduction to evelyn shippen who was William Penns secretary of the province in pennsylvania, they were looking for someone to go into the interior of the company and secure the first rating right. Trading rightfur. Right. Trading there was a replica made of what we believe the cabin look like during the bicentennial in 1985. It is on city island. Froms available for trade the zero that was supposed to go to england but there were some intruders of french and dutch origin that were trading with the indians and i think that is one of the reasons why they sent someone like harris to this area. He built storehouse to store the pelts he would get from the indians and he would take them back to philadelphia to exchange them for supplies. This was a gradual thing. He did not have many other people to trade with, white settlers, but there was a small contingent of as they had demands, he would bring more and more things from philadelphia. This area has long been a river crossing. The indians used it to cross the river to war on neighboring tribes. There was a natural rock shelf that ran out across the river, approximately where the dam was built in 1916 that made it possible to walk across the river in times of low water or in the summertime. Harris got the idea of having a Ferry Service in 1733. And build a flatboat. Get a rope to guide it across what was turkey island, he was able to take eventually wagons across the river. What made him wealthy were these grants, land grants he got from harrisburg 800 acres, he was land rich. John harris was intimate with niece whorried his was also from yorkshire county england, you would think they had a lot to talk about. Hereentually brought after to this small. They later expanded the trading post, build a log house, they have six children, including john harris the second, or junior the first white person born west of the conestoga valley. No other person we know of to dispute that. 1727, here approximate john harris senior died in 1748, interestingly enough, his marriage had split up. Esther had left. Several times. At one point he ran advertisements in the philadelphia gazette which was the newspaper, that he would not be responsible for death incurred by my wife. There was some tension. He is buried across the street. He was very attached to a mole berry tree across the street and the story exists in legend only come he was working on the river bank one day and a band of rather inebriated indians came up or down the river and thought he had rum in the storehouse with you probably did. He did not care to sell it to them. The story goes they tied into a large Mulberry Tree and were going to burn him alive. His faithful africanamerican servant ran for help and brought back some friendly indians from across the river who saved his master. The only thing we have that possibly documents that as being truthful is the fact that harris in his will mentioned hercules and freed him. Harris the first died when his son just turned 21, he was of age that he could take over what had become a plantation in the Ferry Service, the house was started in 1766. And probably first occupied a couple of years later, we think john junior so i flood in his youth saw a flood in his youth and the site has not flooded and has still never flooded. Not only does it overlook his fathers grave but high ground. That is why we think he chose this spot. This is georgian style architecture, the first file of the helens when georgian style architecture was rooted in , the fact itism had many windows it would have said a lot because the more windows, the more wealthy you were. Think of the logistics of getting window glass to a remote place like this in one piece. By virtue of it being stone, it was a mansion. This area was not populated at all, other than harrison himself and the small contingent of scots irish out of the paxton church. However, the building of the house and what grew to become a plantation, he needed workers. He needed everything from state lands to people to work on the house and people to work the fields, this house was rented by ,n orchard and he had fields hayfield skymobi fields along the river and fields as far as 13 pentax and. He had a lot of anchorage, he and acreage, he had preserved a high fill farm which is now capitol hill, they thought that would be great to give to the commonwealth, and entice them to move the capital and make this the capital. They always wanted to move the capital more to the interior, starting in fellowship but they wanted to go west and in 1785 dalton county was formed from part of Lancaster County and they decided to make this the county seat. New county after the we are beholden to the french for helping the revolutionary war. They named the new county dauphin county. Toh do harrison harrisons displeasure, the county commissioners decided what had been colloquially known as harris is very, lewis for after king louis the 16th, harris was not happy about that forrefused to write a deed any of his property sold. I checked come you cannot find any that say lewisburg, so the area between the house between mulberry street and as far north as south street with where his soninlaw william clay live. William clay had merit harris married harrisoldest daughter. He and harris got together in the house and laid out the lots. The new town of harrisburg. From the time he sold lots in 1785 was coincided with the founding of dauphin county. He basically had another six years to live. He died in 1791 and coinciding with his death, the county commissioners finally acquiesced and said we officially name the town harrisburg. Inlowing john harrisdeath 1791, the house state in the Harris Family for many years. Later it became part of the elder family. Thehe 1850s, it had become Pennsylvania Female College beverlyby reverend wallace rall who was a licensed methodist episcopal manager minister but chose to teach at the baltimore female academy. Legislature of pennsylvania chartered a school, a similar school in pennsylvania and he founded the school here in the 1850s. He had some 50 young women living here and on the board of trustees of that school was a man named Simon Cameron who would play the next major role in the mansion. Was the most important political figure in central pennsylvania. He was born a poor boy in pennsylvania near lancaster and came to harrisburg as a newspaper got into politics, became a fourtime u. S. Senator from pennsylvania. When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president , lincoln installed him as war secretary. He and lincoln butted heads but cameron was little involved in graft come he owned his own railroad, he was moving troops by his own railroads and mr. Lincoln was taking heat from it so he dismissed him as war secretary and made him minister in the middle of the winter. A little earlier than that, a reverend had died on the eve of the civil war, a month before. Fort sumter was fired on. Sent cameron has and his wife and daughter to russia and decided he sent word back to one of his awards to buy this house cohorts to buy this house and he and his wife did a shopping trip for this new house, they wanted a victorian house because they had seen this in europe, it is what is called a victorian age, raised ceilings which he liked. Was forly the layout rooms up to four rooms now, john harris had five children by his first wife and 10 by his second wife, he had 15 children running around in here, the art would have been full of livestock, a mixture of plantation and wilderness. This house had been a simple georgian style house when it was built, the various owners who came after harris did various remodels, put a wide veranda on the front, window dormers, and when cameron came, the house was had too low of a ceiling to he got them across the olympic on what wouldve been sailing ships in one piece, in pristine condition. To my mind, those changed the entire complexion of the house because he wanted to the glory and eyes it the tory the bedrooms are likely were both a Harris Family Hannah Cameron family they made those their master bedrooms. Furnishings that would have been common in the harris era and northside bedroom. Versions that would have been more common. , the back to pieces stone probably dates to harris original construction or shortly thereafter but there was in between, possibly a kitchen maid avoided frame made of wood frame. He had that demolished. A formal dining room. If you can do harrisburg you had to visit mr. Cameron, he had connections with harrisburg and washington. We know that after the civil war general grant and sherman were here, all sorts of famous people would come to visit with cameron. If you came to harrisburg, you had to visit mr. Cameron. Wife camerons died in agencies before. In 1864. Much the historical site the irs gave the house to the historical society. What people what does will take away is a story of survival of a the man whoso decided this should be the capital of the state of pennsylvania. Before anybody else. I think it is amazing. He had some real foresight. Any stories tell of the Pennsylvania State archives in harrisburg. The state archives is the official repository for the public records of pennsylvania, particularly those from State Government and we have some responsibility for county and local government records. We hold about 70,000 cubic feet of records and that amounts to approximately 250 million pages of material throughout our storage tower in which we are standing right now. We are looking at materials from the Archives Holdings regarding the Nuclear Accident at three mile island, the accident 1979 andn march 28, there was a partial meltdown of the core of the reactor. In the facility. The myths the facility located south of harrisburg, and itive or six miles is the facility itself is located on an island in the susquehanna river where the name three mile island came from. In 1979, i was a freshman at Messiah College located about 10 miles west of harrisburg on the other side of susquehanna river. My recollection is that information about the accident was coming out in bits and pieces. People were becoming concerned about their children. Many families decided to get in the car and leave the area. The accident occurred on wednesday and as i recall on thursday a College Professors and student started leaving, and by friday, the vast majority of the campus was empty. I did not go home because i live in york and york was the same distance from three mile island was the college of no purpose in going home. Campus, us who stay on that friday night we were called into the dining hall which served as an auditorium and one of the physics professors explain the physics of what was going on at three mile it. Most Common People were not aware of what Nuclear Energy was or what it could do. As the accident came to light, a lot of people were concerned with the release of radiation and what would it do to their children and to their physical being. That is why a lot of people left the area, because they were afraid if there is too much radiation, they were be physical consequences to them. The Pennsylvania State archives has materials related to the three mile island accident scattered throughout the collection. There are three major collections that house the bulk of our three mile island related materials and we have papers from governor thornburgh and there are whole subset of his papers that relate to the three mile island incident and it days after that and the work you did while in office. He established a commission to investigate the accident. Commission, the archives holds the original files from the three mile island commission. More recently, one of the federal officials in charge of helping to deal with the collection ofed a his papers related to his involvement at three mile island. Governor Dayton Thornburgh was in office big thornburgh was in office and one of the things is this chronology of the events surrounding the accident. Minute by minute, what was happening starting at 7 02 a. M. On wednesday, march 28, a supervisor not abated watch officers that the plant has been shut down. It continues from there who has been notified, at 7 12 a. M. , they notify Lancaster County, unable to reach your, they asked lancaster to try and upfront if they get a call from president carter and says he agrees with pennsylvania evacuation decision based on his breathing, i think you are doing the right thing and president carter said harold would be his personal representative to this incident. 30, the p. M. On march governor had a press conference from the media center at which time the schools were to be closed. Among the papers that we received from governor andnburgh are telegrams particularly letters regarding what people thought should be done to deal with this accident and some very interesting suggestions. Mm ricea telegram from who said he was from the Manhattan Project and telegram to the governor to prevent meltdown if safety rods are not operative, run tons of easily available porac solution and to Damage Nuclear reactor, the access port is available or can be made. From someone from kansas city, missouri who has a lot of advice for the governor, what is interesting about this particular letter is he also drew sketches of how he thought this problem could be handled. There were a lot of people who were opposed to the use of Nuclear Energy and also were very concerned about this accident. There was criticism of what was happening at the time. This is a telegram to the thatnor on march 30, friday, it says, dear, sir, the gravest moral sin for you and your official position to state that there is no danger to children or pregnant women in harrisburg at this time. By asking people to stay put you are making decisions in the face of socalled conflicting evidence that there is little or no danger. It seems a prudent man would rather go on the side of safety and i am for you on the name of all the children to evacuate immediately or for generations to come the cursed by those who will shortly be maimed, deformed, and mutilated. You have no alternative, you must act now. I copy of this was sent to senator Stewart Udall and president carter at the white house. We mention the fact that governor thornburgh had a press conference on friday, march 30. Among his papers at the state archives we have a transcription of the press conference. Here are a few things that he said. No Evacuation Order is necessary at this time, my earlier recommendation of pregnant women and preschool children stay out of the area within five miles of the plant site will remain in effect at least until sometime tomorrow. When we expect to provide you with later advised. Number three, my earlier advice is that people within 10 miles of the plant site try to remain indoors will expire at midnight. In his efforts to keep the public informed, he had a statewide televised address on april 6 which was entitled a report to people on the three mile island incident. He opens his address by saying, my fellow pennsylvanians, very soon i hope to have the pleasure of telling a brave and tired group of women and children that they can indeed go home again. I shall treasure that moment for as long as i live. I believe it will mark the end of the most dangerous days of decisions any governor has had to face in this century. Among the collections at the state museum is a rover that was designed to deal with Nuclear Accident such as the one at three mile island. It was used so that a machine could go into the containment building without having to send human beings inside to deal with the meltdown. The rover on display at the state museum was used for training and is a twin to the one that was used to clean up the reactor at three mile island. Harold benton was set by president carter to be part of the federal response to the accident. When they received his papers they included a file of letters and cards from schoolchildren, thanking him for his role in that. Here are a few examples. These mostly comes from an Elementary School class in york, pennsylvania, one of our favorites is this one where the student or a nice flower and , it waswas very scared not if it was not for you, we would have been dead. , radiation got me upset. Some of these cards have nice drawings of the cooling towers have three mile which have become symbolic of that Nuclear Accident. From an Elementary School in sheffield, pennsylvania, northern pennsylvania, governor thornburgh receives this huge letter. This came from sheffield Elementary School prepared on friday, may 4, 1979. They say shut down all Nuclear Power plants. Years, we have had various researchers come into the state archives to look at these collections, some people come to remind themselves of what happened during that time and other people come to study the governments response and governor thornburghs response to the accident. People use these types of records to look at what has happened in the past and apply those lessons and those thoughts to issues dealing with Nuclear Power today. We are at Pennsylvania Cable Network near harrisburg pennsylvania and campaign you, we are the cspan for pennsylvania, on entry. 3 million homes in pennsylvania, every cable system in the state carries us and verizon fires carries us and when house and send it is in session, we carry it and hearings, press conferences, the Supreme Court of pennsylvania, a journalist roundtable, all of the ideas that brian lamb had for cspan we stole for pcn. The network was started in 1979 and the people who started it were some of the people who founded the earliest Cable Systems in the country in the 1950s. They had all done pretty well in business with their cable operations and wanted to give something back, so they created this network as a Public Service for college credit, education. The woman who was running pcn at the time i met her was a cspan fan and wanted to turn it into a cspan for pennsylvania and she and i talked iphone for six months about what a state version of cspan could be. So i put in place all of the things that brian and company had been doing at cspan. , states havetals low newsrooms had been shrinking dramatically over the years and it is less than half the size now than when we started doing pcn. It still diminishes, reporters are being downsized and newspapers are dropping, capital wereu reporters, if pcn not covering State Government, in a love of cases people would have no idea what State Government was doing. Are planted the same way a cspan, we get our money from the Cable Companies to carry our programming, most of the other state cspans are funded by the legislature. And is good in some ways challenging in other ways and the good part is we have complete editorial independence, our Programming Department decides what to cover, when to cover, we can get calls from powerful legislatures urging us to do things but we do not have to follow their bidding because they are not funding us. The challenges, we have to provide a product Cable Operators think has value to their subscribers. Public affairs is great are you to their subscribers but finite value. We have added a love programming elements that appeal to different groups of pennsylvanians and they all have something in common, they are about pennsylvania, kind of cspan style, menlo minimal editing, because we are a nonprofit we have to keep cost of production for our as low as possible. There are things you cannot find on cable anywhere else. Because everybody else in television, go up and down the cable dial, every channel has a lot more money than we have so we cannot compete with them headtohead. We have to offer things you cannot get in other ways. We put together a format of programming that has a lot of different genres that appeal intentionally to relatively small groups of people. Like we have, on july 1, second, third, days of the anniversary of the battle of gettysburg, the National Park Service Rangers do walking towards of the twolefield and there are hours, 2. 5 hours long and we take a camera down and click a wireless microphone on the ranger to follow them around and show it that night, unedited. In thevision channel right mind would do that because it does not appeal to a mass audience but it appeals intensely to a relatively small group of people. But they will be fanatically glued to pcn and cable because of that and they may never watch it the rest of your but for those days they love us. , in january we do we cover the state farm show. Which is like the state fair but indoors in january. We walk around and find some teenager who is grooming his competition. 4h we say, tell me about your goat and why do you do this . We cover the square dance competition and the quilt judging and high school rodeo. We have a fanatical following for our farm share but the people who watched gettysburg may never watch the farm show which is a luxury we have that we do not have to peel to nice and ratings appeal to nielsen ratings. Muchller much like like we cover, stay public affairs, legislative process, one of the things i feel good about at pcn is that there are a lot of guests that are willing to come into pcn that maybe skeptical of other Media Outlets because they feel they may have a slant or bias and they know when they come on pcn it is not about the host or personality, it is about being a pipeline to give our guests an opportunity to talk about their initiative and policies. We talk about what issues are being considered in the legislature and hot topics in the news. We have a good talk about who is the most appropriate person to represent different positions involved in a particular issue. Computerbased web shared format and we started out 20 years ago with this oldfashioned dry erase board and this is something some of us are emotionally attached to because it is nice and easy to nextat a board and wednesday there is a list of all the events we are aware of, this really only deals with a crew that is based in the harrisburg region and we also have people in philadelphia and pittsburgh and additional evidence of a cover but this will show you just a quick rundown of what the events are, what people are being assigned to cover, if something additional comes up on short notice we can say crews at the capital at a certain location, we shift our staff needd and go where we people to be. One of the main goals we do is shedding daylight on what our legislature is doing. Someoneave a lived to be 88 and i want to make sure people like that know what is going on with their elected officials and what is being done with our taxpayer money. Whenever we talk about the different issues or the different bills being considered , i will keep people like that in mind, your average everyday pennsylvania citizen and how whatever issue or policy is being considered, how will that affect them. Pcn is in a unique situation being funded by the Cable Systems and do not receive any state or federal money. Big misconception with a lot of our viewers, we do not receive any state or federal money from the government. That gives us the freedom to cover whatever we want to cover, no influence, certainly we have good relationships with a lot of the people that our legislative leaders and frequent guest but never any influence in determining what we cover based on where our money is coming from or anything like that. We are in the Operations Department at pcn. I am debra sheppard, the chief operating officer at pcn. This is master control, this is really the heart of the whole network. All of the signals come in here. The master control operator who is working in this room, usually four hours to five hours per day and a lot rotation of staff coming in and out and they have to be very detail oriented and highly trained in this room because whatever happens in this room is going to occur on the air. In, they can be the house, the senate, something from the governors office, it could be a football game. The signals come in here and the master control operator, we have dave, his responsibility is to put up the graphics on the air, like names, locations, the topic, and making sure that everything is up at the right time. It looks correct, the name is correct with the individual, things like that. Now we are going to go to another room which is what we call the tape room, kind of a vintage name because most of our programming is not take anymore. We still call it that anymore anyway. All of the signals that come into this room, are monitored by operation staff, besides all the television things we need to monitor, we also stream our signal. In this room, that is one of the responsibilities of the operations staff. For example, we make sure we monitor our website. We monitor our mobile app, in this case on a tablet. Out,ve a pcn select mobile a sufficient mobile app, a subscription service, you can view the app on a phone or a tablet. Or you could also actually view it on a computer. I think a lot more of our programming will be delivered online, cable is still our bread and butter and cable will be our main source of distribution for the foreseeable future we also have to realize that more people are interested in mobile devices and there are places in rural pennsylvania or there is no cable and we have to make ourselves available there. Probably doing what we are doing, right now we have a programming format that appeals to a lot of people, reputable surveys have shown 38 of the potential audience watches us at least once a month. Those are remarkable numbers by any even commercial cable channels. We have a programming format that appeals to people and are financially responsible and financially sound with good support from the Cable Companies, great support from the Cable Companies. Knock on what we can keep it going. Wood we can keep going. To harrisburg, pennsylvania is in American History tvs use of. We showed it today to introduce you to cspans cities tour, for five years we have traveled the cities across the u. S. To explore their literary and historic sites. You can watch more of our visits at cspan. Org citiestour. This weekend, cspan cities tour along with our Comcast Cable partners will is for the literary life and history of richmond, virginia, saturday a new eastern on book tv we will talk with former virginia wilder, authors of the son of virginia, a life in americas political arena, now a professor at virginia commonwealth university, he was the first africanamerican to be elected governor of the commonwealth. I keep an year to the ground ear to the ground. Politicians hear what they want to hear, people hear what they have to here. We will visit the edgar allan polk museum, the color was a richmond native and the museum houses the largest collection of his manuscripts, artifacts, and memorabilia. If it had not been for richmond, he would not have produced his best work and would not have had that chance to experiment in his early 20s and find his literary voice. On sunday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv comics for richmond history from the american revolution, the civil war, and today. Then we will visit the home of maggie walker, the leader in richmonds Africanamerican Community at the turn of the 20th century. She became the first female ceo of a bank in the United States. Mrs. Walkers goal was to run early help primarily health women of the organization and when black women in the entire community and that is what the strength of the independent order of st. Lukes came to be. From that platform, working with the independent order of st. Lukes, mrs. Walker went on not just to have an effect in richmond but towards civil rights and equal opportunity for black women across the United States. Ofwatch cspan cities tour richmond, virginia saturday a new and eastern on cspan twos book tv and sunday afternoon at 2 00 p. M. On American History tv on cspan3. Working with our cable affiliates in visiting cities across the country. By defense secretary james mattis and arizona senator john mccain at the Munich Security Conference in germany. After that, President Donald Trump talks about job creation at the boeing plant in south carolina. Cemetery secretary james secretary james mattis reaffirmed the u. S. Commitment to nato and the trans atlantic alliance. His marks are about 10 minutes. [applause] secretary mattis thank you very much. Good afternoon, and thank you madam minister, for our