again as we go forward. the painting became as i wrote in my notes it became an engraving. edward savage wrote about that and actually told washington he made 10,000 dollars dollars on it. i think that was almost cheeky of savage to say that he was making money on washington. but this picture and washington ordered four engravings, you can see one of them at mount vernon. i'll love to think about that when i'm at met mount vernon. i going to the breakfast room and there is george washington and his family looking down on the table where george washington and his family used to take their breakfast. it's almost like the morton salt girl going down. i do think it's a magnificent thing graving. an extremely important in the history of the country. it was popular because this picture represented what the picture was. we will have more to talk about and that painting in a minute. we have to talk about what washington was up against. his chief desire was to put the capital, the seat of governess as it was known on the banks of the potomac. washington was given that task of citing it in a 10000-mile swath of the potomac and she actually was given up to, as the constitution says to create of federal district up to 10 miles square. he created a diamond district if you will, diamond-shaped district and you can see the tops of the diamond going up to maryland as they do but they went down across the potomac to alexandria. that is an important thing to consider. he was taken in both sides but in the residence act which allowed the president, directed the president really to place the seat of government on the potomac, and all of that, it gave him not 1 penny to carry out the job. so it was rather a trendsetting of the congress at the time to vote for something and yet not give it any money. so washington had to contend with that and we'll talk about little briefly about that. but he also had to contend with thomas jefferson on the one hand who had a vision of the city which was very different. in fact it wasn't a city in the city at all, it was a federal town. this is it right here, this this is rock creek coming in here. you see the town, it was to be about 15 acres, 1500 acres, excuse me. 1200 would would be divided into quarter acre lots. the remaining 300 would would do just fine for public buildings. jefferson's capital would take in about 20 dwelling houses for those who belong to the government and about as many lodging houses and a half a dozen taverns, which i'm i'm not sure was enough for the time. [laughter] then, washington didn't think that way and we have to remember that. washington invited others to come up with the plan. the plan that they came up within this is the older plant done by andrew it was for a city of about 750,000 people. at the time, the largest city in the united states was 40000 people in 1790. ellicott's plan plan what you see before you is adapted he use the words like empire, american empire, and words like he well. wealth he thought not of the united states as it was but as the united states would be and could be. jefferson had designed a town while the other designed a city. washington of course went with the other. there is another story that that was in the book which i won't get to tonight which tells how jefferson really under mind him at every turn. because of washington not having any money to build the city he had to resort to ridiculous schemes. like a lottery. of course course that's not so ridiculous today and lotteries have been very much a part of the united states history and raising money in the united states. this was a lottery and you will see at the bottom a man named samuel was the man who started it. it it was going to be a great lottery. it completely and utterly failed and actually cost money. having succeeded, succeeded, it would have been about $5 million he would have gained to build the city. but it actually cost the government money. but he did for others into land schemes. one of those was james greenlee, a man was one of the most remarkable scoundrels in the history of the united states and more should be known about him. but. but we have to return to the picture. we have really taught a lot. >> i apologize, we've really talked a lot about the federal government and what have chosen to call troubled governments. now we need think about something else. i'm sure you have known that i've left out something. and that is the slave. the slave is wearing washington liberally which interesting enough is near washy is over here. the slave has a collar that is very much like washington's as well only it is turned up. i think this slave is actually quite important. he has a great code and it's salmon red -- he possesses almost a princely quality. his black hair frames the dark face which is on notable. and a prominent nose that he has. his left hand is concealed in that way. the slave remains in shadow. i want to to say something about the slave. the slave is responsible, for i know to doctoral dissertations written on the slave. people are walking around with doctorates, one of them claimed that the slave is without question one another one has claim without question that it is james riley who is actually not one of washington slaves but a slave who the artists captured in london where he worked on the painting. savage captured that slave in london. i said it doesn't matter. i think what is important about it is that the slave is so unknowable. i think that's absolutely important. but it does point out something that is captured in this work and that is that slavery is very much a part of the structure of the united states. before moving on from this i can't resist telling you that the painting went after savage sold it and his son sold it, it went from various places and it ended up in new york where in 1892 the new york sun reported that it has been given a very vigorous and good cleaning with soap and water and salt. somehow i don't think the national gallery was involved. we will go on to another painting which is quite a wonderful one. that is negro life at the south. that was painted by eastman johnson in 1859. johnson was a very fine artist and i think somewhat underrated in this country. but a very fine portrait artists. this is actually a remarkable painting. by the way, it immediately became after it was presented, it immediately became the old kentucky home. i am not sure what that was. whether it was an uncomfortable factor people thinking about this as washington dc? if you you look at the words of stephen foster's song, his ballad, they, they are pretty rough on the idea of slavery too. i've not really sorted that out. let's get back to the things that are important in this painting. he probably captured this from the rear yard of his father's house. if you're going to just step forward and look at what is going on in slavery at this time, this was an image of a slave -- it was being driven across in front of the capital of the united states. that is the capital. remember the remember the british had something to do with the destruction in 1850 in the what you have here is two houses, the senate in the house, the dome of the capitol has yet to be built are the center part of the capital. that dome will will undergo many changes over the years. this was, and we have to understand that when johnson came here and he came from the state of maine by the way, or what was later the state of maine. he was born in massachusetts but in 1858 divided into main. >> .. one of the major slave trading emporiums in the united states. there were plenty of slaves, places as you are all aware and washington d.c.. the decatur house was for a time fell in the hands of the slave traders at. there was the old capital and the old capital prison which was also a slaveholding -- and there were several other situated around the capital. so the abolitionists who were really growing in congress by this time in the 1840s and 50's were also sitting in the center of the slave trade and it was everywhere. here's another picture, it's actually blown up from the one that you just saw which shows the slaves being driven across the capital which has its dome. this is a view of the patent office looking across backyards about 1846. and i think it's very important to see this picture because it does show the rear of houses and we now can return to the picture itself which i find endlessly fascinating. it's the painting of course has these wonderful vignettes going going -- i love this man who is having an interesting conversation with this mullato woman. the fact that the color of her skin speaks volumes about what might be going on in the house next door. interestingly enough there is a ladder up against the house. this is obviously the weight gentrified houses here and across almost virtually next door and virtually next door is the house in appalling repair. the child right here at the window, the roof about to collapse, this terrible disrepair of this particular wall and then coming through here is the white woman coming from obviously the owners, the white owners house into the back , into this house and she's almost startling these people, interrupting, intruding on their space if you will just as obviously there has been other intrusions as the color of the skin suggests, of this woman suggests from the house on the right the white owners house into the black area. i think it's an extraordinary painting. it's in the new york historical society. it's always up and i urge you to go see it. it's worth studying and thinking about. we have to move on quickly to a wonderful image and that's the washington monument. now, robert mills as i think i told you, designed to washington monument, designed to washington monument in 1836. he won a competition for doing so. in the competition he beat out other people and the competition , and there were people who were unhappy about his winning. mills at the time was riding high. he had just secured the patent office which he also designed but he also had secured the addition to the treasury which destroys pennsylvania avenue and he was not so much responsible for that as perhaps the story. it was andrew jackson who put his cane into the road instead this is where the building is going to be and that's supposedly the story. let's take a look at what mills had created in the washington monument or it was an enormous enormous -- much taller than the present one. i believe it went up to over 700 feet. it was surrounded by this colonnade which would have inside statues of american grades. now this is one of the stories that i think does not speak well for anybody in washington except for one person thank goodness at the end whom i will get to. to begin with the washington monument society which began raising money for this put a structure on the amount that it would accept. no more than 1 dollar from any person. i suspect that is not a good way to raise money. it took them until 1848 when they had the ability to at least start the monument but they didn't have enough money. they thought well if they could get the thing started so they finally did in july 1848. dolly madison was there, also alexander hamilton's widow as well. these two widows were there links to the past at the ceremony and a young congressman who didn't serve long in congress, abraham lincoln happened to be there as well. you probably know what happened. it got up to 155 feet which is where you see it in this picture in 1854, in 1854, the washington monument started to look for stones by foreign governments. you have all been in the washington monument and unfortunately the post has fallen and that didn't sit well with the no nothing party. the known nothing party was fearlessly anti-catholic anti-papist and they wouldn't have a papal stone they broke into the lapidary him in the middle of the night smashes down and dumped it into the potomac. people have been dredging and looking for their% would nevertheless i think it's very important that they also kicked all the workers off. and they said we are going to take over. it's going to be built by americans, not by foreigners. and what happened was kind of funny. they got three courses and that was about it. the civil war came along and even before the civil war by 1857 they had flown away. if we stop and think about this for a moment, there's something severely wrong in this story. here we are in front of the capitol of the united states and people have taken over the washington monument. i mean it just boggles my mind to think that the federal government even at that time would allow it to happen. i think it suggests a certain fecklessness on the part of members of congress and how they regarded the city at that time. the monument had a troubled history. after that it became the great east depot monument during the civil war and that's because of course we had all these troops to go into virginia. george mcclellan was forever a massing them, not doing much with them but he was amassing them and what happened was they had to feed them so there was an enormous, and enormous slaughterhouse. where are you going to put it? why not at the washington monument and why not do it bear. the abattoirs can slaughter the animals in the blood drains into the potomac and everybody is happy. so anyway, that is essentially what happened in the civil war. the washington monument was nothing like an old chimney. now after that, finally in 1876 in the spirit and fervor of patriotism the united states congress was spurred into action and it actually voted to complete the monument. of course, and they have devoted $200,000 so as soon as congress got involved guess what happens? everybody started to attack all of mills proposals and come up with their own. there were many many proposals like this one. there were proposals for a camp annealing. there were proposals for pair mitts. there were a bizarre number of proposals and fortunately at that time it was in the hayes administration, there was a man who was in charge of all of washington's civil engineering and that is this man thomas casey. you can see him here sword if at the end of the story. he is at the top of the washington monument in this non-osha approved project. [laughter] and he is doing very well. casey is the hero of the washington monument. also another man who i was a little embarrassed as i was looking over my notes in my book , he only gets a couple of sentences in my book but that's commander george perkins marsh. george perkins marsh was appointed by lincoln to be basically the ambassador to the italian republic or states i should say, kingdom of italy in 1861 and he lasted until 1881 and actually died in italy. but he was also a brilliant classical scholar and he went and figured out what the size of the washington monument should be and the dimensions he figured out having studied lots of monuments should be, the dimensions should be 10 times the width of the base so that made her a monument that was 555 feet. now it's really basically good in a way that the first washington monument wasn't dealt the washington monument that we know was because unfortunately it was already beginning to pitch a little bit. the ground underneath it was not solid. casey had for years to work underneath the monument shoring it up. most of his great engineering feats were underground. marsh figured out the dimensions and casey then -- that the know-nothings had built and you can see the washington monument and i'm sure you all know this is the difference in the coloration about 155 feet up. thomas casey was a wonderful man he was incorruptible and he was also a bulldog. he had a great ability to simply ignore congress. [laughter] he decided as he sent in a letter to his father the monument has become a football for quarks and it's exactly what it was. but he is the one who persevered by december 7, 1884, it was finished and so the monument that we see here in cherry blossom time is complete. this is a picture, i chose a couple of days ago because it was so foggy here and i said well that's kind of nice. i also like the photograph for a lot of reasons. first thing there's this lovely woman who was adjusting her camera. there is this artist over here who is sketching and there's another woman here who is also taking a photograph. i think it's just a marvelous little picture. so, to move on. what a wonderful moment this is in the history of women's suffrage. what an annoying moment it was for woodrow wilson. [laughter] and i must tell you as a personal matter, i came out of this book with even more profound dislike of woodrow wilson than i had when i started it and it wasn't too high before. and i came to really like and fall in love with a wonderful woman named alice paul. alice paul as i think i suggested to you was the woman who started really putting the screws on the federal government about women's suffrage. there have been all sorts of little gentile things happening but nothing like what alice paul did. it makes me wonder about her cat takes and how brilliant they were. this day marks -- march 3, 1913 when the grand women's suffrage procession will begin and the day before the inauguration of woodrow wilson. that wasn't a mistake. nobody was at the station to welcome wilson when he came in, or very few and his car got stuck in traffic with a parade and they couldn't even -- they had difficulty getting him to the hotel where he was staying the night before at the moderation. the inauguration took place but it wasn't enough. alice paul was about to fade, that's for sure. [laughter] so the first world war came along and alice paul was at the ready, because women were coming to washington in extraordinary numbers and wilson needed them as he had never needed women before. and so we have these wonderful world -- words, have you forgotten your sympathy? have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor germans and because they were not self-governed, 20 million american women are not self-governed. take the beam out of your own eyes eye. that was bad enough but then they decided to chain themselves to the white house fence and then they got arrested and then they went to jail and then they were forced -- and then alice paul sent messages out of jail to waiting and willing and happy reporters of all the indignities that were going on in the jail and wilson was over a barrel. he had to capitulate. by november 1918, wilson was really in retreat. he was decent and this is something i have to give him in his defeat. he came to support the 19th amendment. he got it passed in the house. it failed in the senate right two votes and he came and set up a table from europe where he was working on this piece and he implored the senators to vote, which they finally did in june of 1919. it took a little over a year until august of 1920 before the 19th amendment to the constitution became a law. i want to just briefly talk about some of the women who were in washington at that time and this woman is josephine laymon right here. josephine laymon left me a very lovely rich diary of off all of her experiences in washington during the war, including by the way she lived through the influenza and here she is on an outing with three of her female companions. very interesting hand gestures in this photograph. and three male companions. this was of course unheard of and by the way they are at the washington zoo in this photograph and i want you to know that josephine laymon was very careful with men because she said in her diary she did not wish to be known as a fast piece of furniture. [laughter] you all know this iconic picture. which i absolutely love of marian anderson. i have to now bring back mr. wilson and jim crow. you have to remember what woodrow wilson did almost immediately after he became president. he allowed his cabinet to put in jim crow regulations. henceforth people who were advancing, black men who were advancing in the civil service were stopped. he made no appointments that had to get through the congress of blacks. he was in many ways one of the worst presidents for washington d.c.. in fact i have to say he was the worst president for the city of washington which makes it very odd to me. he didn't like the city. he really dislike the city. he mentioned the city so far as i could find in his state of the union address. everybody mentions the city in the state of the union address. john adams and the first state of the union address in washington which was really a message to congress. dwight eisenhower mentioned it, calvin coolidge mentioned it. not once woodrow wilson, which makes it very curious. he is buried in washington. i have never quite understood that. [laughter] but wilson of course did extraordinary damage to the city of washington through his -- allowing these racial events to occur. he was i would say almost entirely responsible -- i wrote about this in "politico" recently, for the 1919 riot which was the first to race riot of the summer of 1919 which was called the red summer because there was so much blood, not communist but the blood that was flowing in cities across the south. it began in washington d.c. and began very close to the white house and it ended up in extraordinary deaths. but all of that past and yet the does segregation remained. and by law too. here was washington on the cusp in 1939 of being a world power and at that moment, in the nation nations history, in the capital of the democracy a black man or a black woman could not stay in a hotel. in downtown washington. they had to go out to what is now shah and marian anderson when she came to washington for the concert that morning could not go to a hotel. she had to go to former governor of pennsylvania's house and rested there before she began to sing her great words which i think i mention in my notes about my country to visit me, sweet land of liberty and it was a dramatic moment for the country. not only for the 75,000 who were around the reflecting pool at the lincoln memorial and not toward the washington monument, not just for them but for the millions who were listening over the nbc radio. but even though, this is something that i find very disturbing, even though these great symbolic moments are history, the practices still go on. for that i turn to gordon parks. this really wonderful work. gordon parks came to washington in 1942. he came from kansas and he found racism as the road was busy with its dirty work, shoot me to the back doors. senators refused me. this is during voices of the clerks and julius garfinkel's prestigious department store route me with curtness. he was about to leave and his boss in the administration is working and what was basically a farmer settlement administration which then merged into another roosevelt administration was taking photographs of american life. it was happy photographs for the most part. gordon parks came to strike her and said about to leave i'm so frustrated here and striker said one that you go down the hall and see that lady who is a charwoman and talk with her? >> l. watson at that point and what you see is that he went to al watson and heber friended her and we will talk about this photograph next, which is of course american gothic washington d.c. and is an absolutely dramatic and wonderful picture. and what you see is the downward falling stripes of the flag of liberty contrasting so magnificently with the upward thrust of the broom and a mop and suggested there is al watson and all blacks trapped in a new form of servitude. i want to go back to the more intimate picture of al watson which is lol watson and her grandchildren which is this is the blind and many many ways. it's a neatly divided. she has it looking through a doorway in the watson's cramped kitchen with the small children in the left foreground. one is clutching her doll. they sit at this table with her dishes and behind them watson sits almost madonna like as she gazes upon the imprint in her lap and behind her, behind the cans and jars of ports can be refrigerated and beyond. they go to the doorjamb and david doorjamb would catch an expensive glimpse of the tree and the sky that contradicts, expands and contradicts and makes us think it's even more compressed. then to the right we see that dark dresser and the curved frame mirrors stand against the plaster wall. a photograph of watson's own parents before the mirror. then we manage i think in this part of the picture to evoke a dignified past of those wonderful parents posing in that picture, the noble distress of watson's present circumstances. the uncertain future for all of these children and for the child who is here. that to me is a terribly important and moving image and it tells us a lot about the racism that has formed not just the city but also american life. i want to just close, i can't close on a somber note. so i want to talk about the wonderful page which i did not put in your packet but i think is quite wonderful and it's by a great artist by the name of jorge perez rubio and it's an aerial deconstruction of the american capital. what you see here in this great picture is the wonderful energy that washington exhibits. when i was walking around the city seeing what was going on, looking at the various neighborhoods, studying the various documents just absorbing the energy of the city i found a city with remarkable energy. despite the compromised governmental situation, despite the racial difficulties which i'll last continue but are getting better i like to think, we see washington, this great symbol for energy, the future, the importance of washington as our national city. thank you very much. [applause] >> this is your moment. >> the same basic question. in all your research, from all your research with everybody that you have in the book -- [inaudible] >> all of the people i would like to have dinner with. i wouldn't mind dinner with alice paul, i will tell you that much. but i would probably like to have dinner with james madison, not in washington d.c. but in princeton new jersey because the origins of washington d.c. are actually in princeton new jersey and just to briefly encapsulate that story, in 1783 the congress of the united states was meeting in philadelphia. southerners didn't like philadelphians, that's for sure. madison certainly didn't. he he lost his slave, billy had run away and he was recaptured and he had to sell him because he didn't want them to go back to virginia and give the other slaves any notions of what freedom was like. madison was the one who was part of what happened that day in philadelphia. that they in philadelphia in june or july of 1783, pennsylvania soldiers started to rally in front of the statehouse , that is to say independence hall for their pay. they weren't actually angry with the congress. they were angry with the state legislature who is meeting on the second floor but they were pointing their guns into the congress on the first floor and the continental can't -- continental congress were scared. they got the hell out and they went to princeton and they met in nassau hall for a while. i would love to have had dinner with madison at that time who was sharing a bed with a man named james jones because, lots of people shared bits at that time that there were no accommodations in princeton and he was sharing a 10 x 10 room which actually shrank in his letters. it was not 10 x 10 by later in the letters. but what happened was, what i would like to do is say you know james, you really have got to reconsider this whole proposition that you have created. you were creating this forming in your mind but that you want to create a place for the government which is what the district of columbia is, a federal district apart from the people of this democracy and you want to do it for those people in the congress to convene and deliberate without pressure by anybody. no million man marches, no martin luther king speeches, nothing like that. we can't have that in madison's world and i would like to have said to madison whom i have great regard for, we have to look forward and think about what the democracy will be and it is about the people and maybe i could have talked him into it. [laughter] yeah sure. c-span is depending on you. >> at what point did things like the control of her monument still being built and there was controversy every time they went to build a museum or anytime someone want to put up a monument, when did that start to get really formalized? >> i'm going to give you a broad answer but it's really in the 20th century. people were putting up monuments pretty freely, but fortunately the capital planning commission and the arts commission came into being at the turn-of-the-century really as a result of -- i'm really truncating a lot of history that the macmillen -- which gave us the magnificent design for where we have put the lincoln memorial and actually gave us the union station which was quite remarkable because at the time and 1900 trains were actually going right across the mall. there was a huge station across the mall, so the mcmillan commission really change that and out of that and through the agency of william howard taft, a lot of the arts foundations commissions were created. so it's really at the beginning of the last century. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> that's george washington who did that. let's tell a little bit about him. george washington custis was a bit of a disappointment to his stepgrandfather, george. there are some letters that say he's not doing so well in school but he really, as of course washington died without issue. those custis children especially george washington custis was the one who held the mantle, to the mantle of washington and he created the custis mansion on the hill overlooking the city. and i'm sure you have been there to the mansion itself. you have seen the slave quarters behind it. i mean it's quite a remarkable place. it was filled with memorabilia of washington. he then became a playwright who wrote some of the most incipient, awful words i have ever seen and i copy a few of them in the book. but he married off one of his daughters and then it became -- and so in the civil war it was taken over and then you will see if you read a little bit about montgomery begs, he became really fear lent anti-confederate and kept moving the graves closer and closer to the mansion itself so it was really, the mansion has a wonderful history of its own. i think i have about done it on the custis lee family. thank you. >> you said originally washington consisted of a 10-mile square in the shape of a document. part of it i believe centered in alexandria broke away. >> gessen 1846. >> could you give us a bit of background on that and also the reasons are breaking away i understand no longer exist. [laughter] >> how interesting that you should bring that up. this was called in 1846 retro session and it was because, as i suggested there is some evidence at least that is because of the great slave trade that was going on in alexandria virginia at the time. if alexandria were part of a slave state and not part of the district where slave commerce was becoming illegal, then at that point he would be free to engage in your selling of flash. and so that was exact we, that was part of what the retro session was about but the other part of your question quite intrigues me because as a matter of fact, there have been people who have been head of the senate committee on the district of columbia who have floated the idea that there should be a new accession of in a sense a return to the diamond state. i think this is not likely to happen. [laughter] >> i have two questions. first i was wondering going through a little history about the naming of the city and perhaps maybe were there any alternative names suggested and the second question is what you think about the fact that it seems john adams is missing in a lot of memorials in the town. >> wow. well, let's think about that. first, the first question which had to do with the naming was basically washington, it was not to be washington. the congress did not designated that way at the beginning. they designated it just as the federal seat of government. that's the way it's stated in the residence act of 1790. by what happened is washington appointed three commissioners. i go into those commissioners in some detail in my book and they decided along the way, i think it was several years into the course of the city's creation that it should be called washington and they declared that it would be called washington. about your question about john adams, excuse me? i apologize. christopher columbus, columbia. d.c.. bats and i believe the federal act of 1790. it would be the seat of government and the district of columbia. as simple as columbus had a great importance to this land at that time. there was a poet named joel barlow who wrote an extraordinarily long poem about this nation so i apologize. the other part of your question was about john adams and i think you are right. john adams has over the years not been received very well for several reasons, to be sure. i think david mccullough's magnificent biography of adams has begun to change that. he is very important to the republic. he is very important as one of the founders of the nation and he was a person who by all means we should be thinking of memorializing in the city, i agree. i would be hard-pressed to disagree with that as a matter of fact. >> would you talk about the development of railroading in the d.c. area? >> a little bit? it might be the operative word. washington became in a way, midway between the north and the south for the railroads as it was for the country so there are roads of course shunted their trains across what is now the mall. the mall had enormous tracks, an enormous number of tracks. they went down maryland avenue. and in the cleveland administration, the real roads had a very big push to make the mall that they were filling in, the mall that we walk across today that has been largely reclaimed beyond the washington monument or the lincoln memorial and they wanted to use that land for a freight yard and it didn't work out that way. the more interesting story i think is about the creation of union station as part of the macmillen plan and what happened was that the macmillen plan if you are not familiar with it was the senators, james met ellen from michigan who was very much involved with the district of columbia and very much appreciative of everything in the district of columbia. he really cared about this city and one of the things he wanted to do was to bring some design organization to it because largely by 1900 while the plan had been ignored in terrible ways. so macmillen ultimately got through the senate and classic senate fashion. they turned down the proposal and then he waited until they were out of town and created the mcmillan commission. i recounted them might look and they do it very quickly in the book too. it's typical congressional maneuvering and he had a very able assistant named moore who was brilliant at pulling such things off. well mcmillan ultimately appointed the commission and it included burn him, the designer of the chicago world's fair. fred olmstead and charles mckim said you had two of the most brilliant architects including including -- and you have the son of the man who was the most brilliant and foremost landscaped architects. they were to olmstead's and they went by the same name so it's easy to confuse them and having some difficulty doing his work but he was simply a part of it. they went to europe and they studied all the great cities of europe. i often photograph that. i was researching it thinking my god what tabloid would love to get ahold of this story. all these guys going to the great capital capital to europe and having a great time. they really studied very hard. one of the people that they met actually, they were all and i think paris but burnham had to go off to a meeting with james cassatt and cassatt, the father of mary cassatt was also the head of the pennsylvania railroad. he didn't want the railroad where it was. burn him sure didn't want it where it was so wet they arranged was for a tunnel basically to go under capitol hill to the south and then they would build union station so the trains would terminate there. i think i have exhausted all of my knowledge on the railway in washington. >> word is the origin of the district franchise? >> excuse me. now you've got me started. the origin is in the constitution of the united states. article i, section 8 i think it's clause 17, which says that this is apart from the country. and that is where it again. but i think you might want more about it. that's been reinforced. i often think about, nobody knew how to govern the city. congress didn't want to govern it when they came and so they allowed for a mayor and then they allowed for a mayor who was first appointed and that counsel was appointed and the mayor was good etc. etc. and then he came up in 1871. 1871 i think and they made the district into a territory. therefore it had at territorial governor and it didn't have any elected officials at that point. that is when a man named shepherd, alexander shepard had full range and i don't want to get into shepherd because it will take us many months away but anyway shepard was a man who largely rebuilt the city. what happened after that, because of some of the things he did. malfeasance of funds and what happened after that was in 1874 i believe they decided that it wouldn't have a territory. it wouldn't be allowed to have a mayor. they would have three people who would be appointed to run the city of washington. two would be appointed by the president. they would all ultimately be appointed by the president but the third was always reserved for a military man. that's why thomas lincoln casey could build the washington monument and take over the construction of that. well, this is all very well but it lasted as the city grew from oh gosh i think it was about maybe 65,000 at that time to well over 800,000 during the second world war. what you had was three commissioners. they were usually cronies of the president or often cronies of the president. when marian anderson, and this would be the end example of government dysfunction. when marian anderson first wanted to use the daughters of the american revolution hall constitution hall, she was refused that and then saul haro coup is creating the concert said what about a school? the white schools turned her down and then they decided maybe they would allow its just this once and then everybody got angry and that point he stepped in and said how about that lincoln memorial with roosevelt's approval and roosevelt was dying to do it and eleanor resigned from the dar. but how many commissioners were there at that time? there was the military commission approved by the commissioners had resigned and the other was more interested in the easter seals campaign and passing out certificates to good drivers, things like that. it was preposterous pool was going on. this by the way the situation existed for 100 years, from 1871 to 1971. washington really didn't have a mayor. >> i have a speculative question. if the jefferson of the city had prevailed how would that have changed our history? >> well, i think i want to broaden the question. if jefferson had prevailed how would that have changed our history? jefferson was an agrarian. he believed in an agrarian democracy. he distrusted cities that were over 20,000 an attack that was the outer limit and he said things like of new york which was in the largest city. it was that the cloaking that of civilization, the outhouse of civilization. that's putting it nicely, and so anyway i think that jefferson wanted a very different world than the world that we have. .. >> >> to get the country into the last to extend its i'm afraid i heavy bid injured. >> we will leave it there. on. [applause] main [inaudible conversations] one minute his neck and pollen to topple the book "primary politics" everything you need to know a dog howl where cuts looks of the presidential candidates. they say where is this crazy system come from? this book is an attempt to is that question. and through the presidential candidates over the years. but the system almost breaks down with an old-fashioned contested primary. this book is an illustration of that the senator clinton and from the hotel on capitol hill wearing one ever signature pantsuits maybe blue silk was made 2008 and was in the homestretch for the race for the democratic nomination. along the way her sure-fire quest had run into a phenomenon, a first term senator from illinois half white and half african-american named barack obama of. her president - - her husband walks the black community reject as he would support his wife to rally for obama. the yen despite many setbacks to be close to hautboys to hit a strong finish why she had a strong general election candidate but yet she needed delegates. what linklater hillary clinton ended a curse of -- and a race in front of hundreds of supporters. person is not the first campaign and it would not be the last which is a topic of this book. >> let me start but what i call the first chapter of the good old days some of our great presidents were zero -- denominated in convention of superdelegates nobody voted for them and primary and run not important at all but they were not important roosevelt , and dwight d. eisenhower and kennedy. the object today is to accumulate a majority of delegates at the nominating convention. there the similarities would end. it bears a little resemblance to the strategy of days gone by then because the system is so different. for instance imagine roosevelts confusion to hear topcoat -- people talk about momentum in the years of convention. momentum was a term describing his day to describe the behavior at the convention itself. imagine eisenhower's reaction to howard baker to give up his job as majority leader of the senate for years before the election. in order to campaign. and how all these men would react to the democratic primary race where to a senior senators joe biden and between them were never seriously considered for that party's nomination because all energy was consumed by a former first lady and a first term african-american senator. so the electoral college rate is still very much the same but between 1968 the democratic party was part of the rescued reform system and the proximate cause of those reforms of the anti-war democrats and minorities that they were cut out of the action. to be seamlessly categorized was simply not representative of the a party >> so what we have is a transformation of the old system to the new system. i think that was the semipublic system it is hard to see goldwater complete the surprising into the republican establishment to get enough delegates even while nelson rockefeller is but the world really did change in this period of time. so understanding that change the features of this current system which would be more or less the same that help us understand what it is about. first of all, this is a system in which matters. this is a series of elections. each election in each state picking delegates will go to a convention i will get to that any minute jimmy carter was the first candidate in 1976 so one of my chapters is called sequence san strategy because in any presidential race and i can promise you right now there are a campaign operatives looking at this calendar calendar, what is the sequence of the defense? where might we lose? and hal and this period to put together enough delegates for convention? to the surprise of those who did not understand it there is a surprise victory in the iowa caucuses a lot of people ask me why not new hampshire first? payroll laser early it is just any old system it didn't matter because sequenced in a matter. under the new rules to as things change. first of all, the rule was in the first of the nomination has to be at the same time and same place throughout the state. and people participating have indicated they were for for president. with the sleepy iowa caucuses that elect to a convention semele they returned to the functional equivalent of a primary. they could go there on february 1st and observe each caucus, then they could declare a winner of the iowa caucuses at 11:00 p.m.. jimmy carter got that and he catapulted the iowa caucuses into really the first important step. we will see that when much of the press corps from around the world converged on an iowa and a real free show of attention. they do you share primary first in the nation since 1911 a long time been nobody paid much attention and time to time than new hampshire primary was important to those party elites in those conventions. harry truman did not do well in the of the new hampshire primaries and decided not to run for reelection and decided not running for reelection so that is the expense of the importance of new hampshire. but then bill whole system becomes public and the changes to a sequence that what matters is momentum. in this instance and a right to show how works success or failure in one context affects voters behavior and don and on it goes. on the morning of february february 2nd some republicans but then they're out of the race. that is the importance of momentum.

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