Time lineup at 11 with author richard [inaudible] talking about president lincolns sense of humor. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. [inaudible conversations] mark, how are you . [inaudible conversations] hello, everyone. Thank you so much for coming out this afternoon. My name is david childers, im art of the event staff here at politics and prose, and its our honor just behalf are of the staff and others, its our honor to welcome you here for this event for the author brad snyder and his new book, the house of truth a washington political salon and the foundations of american liberalism. I have a few housekeeping notes i want to cover right before we get started. If you will take this time to silence any cell phones or noisemaking devices so we dont have any unnecessary interruptions during the event. I will also mention that if youre a regular here, sometimes you know that we ask you to put up the chairs. Were going to have an event following this one, so after the events over, just leave the chairs as they are. We are honored to have cspan booktv come out to many of our events, so this is being recorded. But as a part of that, wed really like to have whenever you ask a question, because theres going to be the at the second half of the reading, theres going to be time for questions and answers, we ask that you come to this microphone at the side of the column so we have a record for the tv, cspan booktv. That would be greatly appreciated. And after event is over, all the copies are available behind the register, and the signing line will start immediately to the right of the table. Thatll be it. So between 1912 and 1933, a group of washingtons rising movers and shakers met in a Dupont Circle rowhouse for informal political discussions drawn together by us illusionment with the Taft Administration, Oliver Wendell holmes, Louis Brandeis among others debated events such as communism, the role of the u. S. After the great war and much else. In his third book, snyder traces the mens gradual shift from a strong progress be i have belief that government should protect workers and regulate no knop byes monopolies to the span that government can help life without impinging on civil liberties. David maraniss, author of once a great city, says with his deep understanding of history and the law, brad snyder has crafted a notably ill human names and illuminating and refleshing book. It brings to life a group of friends that helped shape what became known as the american century. Brad snider teaches constitutional law, civil procedure, 20th century american legal history and sports law. Hes written two critically acclaimed weeks about baseball and numerous articles including the Supreme Courts mishandling of the case of julius and ethel rosenberg, the divided jurisprudence of chief Justice John Roberts based on his judicial clerkships with Henry Friendly and William Rehnquist and the aftermath of the memo to justice jackson. He has appeared on espn, cspan and hbo and New York Times documentaries. If you will, please join me in welcoming brad snyder. [applause] well, there are a lot of people here. I really just want to, first, thank politics prose. Its an honor to be standing up here. Ive seen so many great authors present their work here, so its a real honor to be in this bookstore for the third time. I also want to thank all my family [laughter] and theres a lot of em, including my daughter lily and my son max and my wife shelby and my parents who flew up for this event. And a lot of my friends and a lot of former coworkers and a lot of people who helped make this book a lot better. John milton cooper, dan ernst, a bunch of people who read this book cover to cover when it was in manuscript. And let me tell you, thats a huge undertaking. So is im really grateful to all of them x can theyre all here. And theyre all here. The last time i gave a talk like this was to my daughters third prek class of 3yearolds and 4yearolds, and it was about what a constitutional law professor does. [laughter] and like a good conlaw professor, i made up some power point slides, i had one of the u. S. Capitol, i had one of the Supreme Court, and i had one of the white house. And after about five minutes, i opened it up for questions, and my first question was why are you wearing a whale on your shirt. [laughter] so i hope, i hope, i hope that i can do a better job of eliciting questions from you about my book than why there isnt a whale on my shirt this time. [laughter] so the argument im going to make today and an implicit argument in the book is that liberalism really was founded and thrived as an Opposition Movement. Before i make that argument and sort of delve into it, i want to give you some background about the book. I got the idea for the book when i was living at 1920 s street northwest which is only about two blocks from the house of truth. The house of truth is Still Standing at 1727 19th street northwest, thats between s and corcoran streets. And be i was reading the bibliographical notes by a great historian named g. Edward wright, his biography of Oliver Wendell holmes, and he said not a lot had been written about the interactions between oral Oliver Wendell holmes and his young friends from the house of truth. And that sort of set off a lightbulb in my head, and i thought, well, i can finish this book in two or three years. Here we are six, almost seven years later, and im finally done, and it was a bigger undertaking than i thought it was. Really where i knew i had a book was when i discovered the pape beers of the man who owned the papers of the man who owned the house. He was tasked commission tafts commissioner of Indian Affairs probably a guy no ones has ever heard of, a guy one name bed named Robert Valentine. An attorney for taft and felix frank be furtherer who was then working in the taft War Department to live in a house. Well, Robert Valentines papers were in a barn for a long period of time in connecticut, this this wonderful archivist rescued them and donated them to the Massachusetts Historical Society where they remained unprocessed. And the reason why the papers were so important to the book was that and the reason why valentine started sort of this group house was because his wife and daughter were living in massachusetts. So he was writing about the daily comes and goings to his wife and daughter and about what everybody was up to and about who they had over that night in these letters that was in this unprocessed collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society. So it was really when i discovered the valentine papers that i knew i could help people understand what the house of truth was, what the people who were going there were doing and what types of things they believed in. Basically, the house was a bunch of people who thought that president taft was the worlds worst president. [laughter] there were a bunch of progressives, and they and they were in the administration, and they just thought he was sort of disinterested, he would give sort of these rambling, not well thought out peaches, and he wasnt speeches, and he wasnt, didnt really care about the issues that they cared about. And the issues they cared about were more antitrust prosecutions and the rights of labor; specifically, the rights of organized labor and minimum wage laws and maximum hour laws, lots of things we sort of take for granted. And they thought the way to achieve those goals was to reinstall Theodore Roosevelt in the white house. And so roosevelt had basically handed over the white house to taft. Taft was his protege. And then i think regretted giving up the opportunity to run for president again. And is so he started stabbing taft in the back new intermediaries, and in 1912 sort of orchestrated a draft and challenged the sitting republican president first as a Republican Party candidate, and then as a third party candidate, what was known as the bull moose campaign. And it was these people from the house of truth who really made the house of truth the sort of de facto Campaign Headquarters for anyone who wanted to reelect Theodore Roosevelt to the white house. So roosevelt was the hero of the house, but that really didnt last long because roosevelt lost. Valentine actually quit his job in the Taft Administration. This was front page news in the New York Times at the time. He quit his job in the Taft Administration. He was the highest ranking Taft Administration to quit, to join roosevelts campaign. But after roosevelt lost, valentine went up to boston and sort of remade himself as an industrial counseling expert and became sort of an expert in Labor Management relations. But a lot of other people, including Felix Frankfurter, decided to stay in washington and work in the Wilson Administration. Of course, it was a threeperson race between taft and roosevelt and wilson. And that enabled wilson to become one of the first be democratic president s in the white house for a long, long time. So wilson and all these guys stayed in the white house, and the house of truth was alive and well as a political salon. And what they did was they founded a magazine. The magazine that they founded in 1914 along with Herbert Crowley and Walter Litman and Felix Frankfurter was one of the original incorporators of this magazine was the new republic. And that became the magazine that was the outlet for their liberal ideas. Quickly, the editors of the new republic split with Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt referred to the editors after he got angry with them about Foreign Policy as three anemic gentiles and three international jews. [laughter] isso they sort of for a time became wilson partisans because they were internationalists, and they believed that the u. S. Should get involved in the First World War. But there came a time where they, too, parted ways with woodrow wilson. These former progressives rebranded themselves as liberals. And the beginning of my book quotes Walter Litman in 1919 where litmans really describing the development of liberalism. He says that liberalism really doesnt have a coherent set of ideas. What its against is against the sort of old, corrupt Party Politics of the past. And i actually think theres just this weird rebranding going on here from progressivism, and the rebranding is this progressives believed in government. They believed the government could solve most of their problems. I think these liberals from the house of truth still believed in government, but also around 1918, 1919 started to recognize its excesses. And let me give you some examples. Litman was really shocked and told the Wilson Wilson and other people in his administration that they shouldnt be censoring tunes during the First World War in 1918. Newspapers during the First World War. And then he became more disenchanted with the administration because they were censoring the foreign war correspondents. Felix frankfurter served on wilsons president ial heeduation commission which mediation commissioning which enabled him to go out west and report on two major events. One was where they were deporting against federal law some immigrant laborers, and another was the case of tom mooney who was a labor leader who was convicted of murder for a bombing on preparedness day based on perjured testimony. And i think both litman and frankfurter began to see that this there was too much power and that especially in wartime that the it was a really bad thing to censor and silence antiwar critics. The sort of last piece here is the espionage act which was passed in the Wilson Administration along with the sedition act to really silence and jail antiwar critics. And in 1919 in november, Oliver Wendell holmes jr. , of who was a justice on the Supreme Court and a regular at the house, decided a case called abrams, or at least he dissented in the case. And it was there that holmes really started to articulate what we consider sort of our foundational principles about free speech and really began sort of the Supreme Courts free speech jurisprudence. Marking the days until retirement. He hasnt really escaped the shadow of his famous father who was a physician and one of the founding editors of the Atlantic Monthly and he marked 1912 on his calendar because that is when he would have served 12 years on the Supreme Court and youre entitled to a full pension but his relationship at the house of truth took someone who was disenchanted being on the Supreme Court and looking to get out into an american liberal hero. The odd part about that is by 2017 standards holmes wasnt all that liberal. He believed in deferring to government with the small exception on free speech and fair criminal trials but he played an Important Role in the houses activism and the move that turned progressivism into liberalism and made liberalism a thriving Opposition Movement. Let me explain about that but i think liberalism as an Opposition Movement began during the polymer raids. Wilson slapped attorney general Mitchell Palmer who began rounding up radical immigrants and many of whom were critical of the war but some of them werent and scheduling them for deportation and frankfurter in one of his Harvard Law School another huge First Amendment theorist passed by a federal judge in boston to defend 20 of those immigrants and frankfurter and chafee entered into an investigation of Mitchell Palmers accesses in rounding up these immigrants anddeporting them and found scores of Fourth Amendment violations and if you add the person leading the immigrant roundup was a Young JusticeDepartment Official named J Edgar Hoover. To make a long story short, 16 of those 20 immigrants were saved deportation by frankfurter and chafee as a result of a friend of the Court Intervention in the case and to me that is the beginning of liberalism as an Opposition Movement taking on government because they took on palmer and J Edgar Hoover in that case in public and wrote a report detailing palmers constitutional excesses and challenged palmer to go under oath about those raids. In 1920 in november president harding gets elected and he gets elected in an America First slogan and liberals find themselves out of political power for the next 12 years. It is my argument during these 12 years, dont despair all of you liberals in the room but during these 12 years when liberals were out of political power liberalism may have been at its best. What happened with even though the house of truth had broken up as a formal political salon but liberals began forming networks, lawyers, journalists, networks that started in this house, politicians and began standing up they thought were unfair and unjust. Frankfurter opposed the 15 quota on jews at Harvard College they tried to establish in 1923, tried to save the job of the College President alexander mikelljohn. Justice holmes gave these liberals some real ammunition in 1923 with the majority opinion in the Supreme Court case you people have heard of called moore versus dempsey and it was about some black arkansas sharecroppers and it remanded their case for a new trial and for the first time found a state criminal conviction violates the due process clause, those black sharecroppers and other was during the elaine riots were so mob dominated they violated due process laws and that put fair criminal trial on the liberal agenda. It didnt give up Party Politics either. In 1924 frankfurter who became increasingly conservative over time, frankfurter supported a thirdparty candidate for president. You could think a Bernie Sanders like candidate for president and frankfurter and litman wrote dueling editorials in the new republic about this president ial election and frankfurter really had it out and said im not thinking about 1924. I am thinking about 1944. Others championed ideas in the house of truth, Louis Brandeis had been a regular in the house of truth, the famous freespeech concurrence in whitney versus california. In 1927 was really a high watermark for the People Associated with the house of truth. There was a case of two italian anarchists who were tried and convicted of robbery and murder, Felix Frankfurter by writing a book about the case in 1927 turned it into a cause celebrity and frankfurter was able to rally this liberal network on the idea that they were innocent because most historians think he wasnt. But around the idea they had a fair trial, the judge was prejudiced and made some comments about the case while the trial was going on and saying he was going to make sure those anarchists were hung. He enlisted litman who by this time was an Editorial Page Editor at the new york world and made the world which was quite liberal the National Voice for a new trial, they went to Justice Holmes and Louis Brandeis to get lastminute date of execution in the case and even and listed someone who wasnt so liberal but associated with the house to do a boss relief and memorial after they had been executed in 1927. In 1928 they backed the First Major Party candidate for president , out smith and even though smith lost they remained engaged in electoral politics and were able to shape the Supreme Court even with Herbert Hoover in the white house. The organized labor and the naacp protested hoovers second Supreme Court nominee, john j parker, successfully blocked parkers nomination to the Supreme Court and when Justice Holmes retired in 1931 they were really able to lobby lots of people in the Hoover Administration and get Benjamin Cardozo to be holmess replacement. I think the biggest achievement during this time in opposition was turning the Democratic Party into the liberal party and there they were able to elect Theodore Roosevelt president in november 1932 and even excuse me. Even though i have the a roosevelt on the brain but even though litman hated Franklin Roosevelt and tried to torpedo Franklin Roosevelts candidacy frankfurter and others as early as 1928 when Franklin Roosevelt was elected governor of new york, they saw Franklin Roosevelt as their next great hope and got behind him early and helped elect him and the rest is history, liberalism became the dominant group in american politics but i would insist their best days may have been when they were out of power and for despairing liberals in the group theres a lot that can be done by forming professional Networks Among lawyers, journalists, politicians and regular people, remaining engaged in all aspects of political life that you think are important because i think a lot of liberalism during this time period was standing up for the underdog and that is what liberals should be doing today. With that im going to open the floor. I thank you all for coming. It has been fabulous to present the ideas in my book. [applause] thank you. Thanks. A select question. One of the ideas you presented us with is liberals and liberalism was at its best when in an opposition role. What do you think about the inverse of that, when liberals and liberalism are in power, things 10 to go awry for some reason, is there any basis . Is that an implication or not an implication . Governing is really hard. That is what president obama would say, governing is really hard. There were a lot of peaks and valleys during the new deal is not that it was a failure by any means but governing is hard and i dont think liberals are incapable of governing or are at their worst in power. I think there is some real power to liberalism, standing up for the little guy which is a lot of what liberalism is about and that power is quite effective. Thanks for your question. The way you presented it makes me think what you are saying is intellectuals it is important in my mind because my knowledge of the period would also include huge factors like the legacy of William Jennings bryan or the Labor Movement or the connections between these people and mass movements in the crosssection of nonelite america in a way to my way of thinking is frustrating that is much less the case today of connections between the intellectual elite and nonelite in america and the notion of there is a synergy rather than a conflict between those factors. I didnt hear anything about that in the talk. Can you comment . I would like to be able to say you are right but they were pretty elitist. Im not sure how much Contact People like Robert Valentine had with the average Felix Frankfurter wrote the labor injunction. Brandeis with a labor arbitrator connected with growing movements and textile Workers Union and i know a lot of conservative critics attack the Roosevelt Administration as brian is a in the next generation. One thing you left out is there was a lot of Wilson Administration influence on the Roosevelt Administration. Lets not forget roosevelt was in the Wilson Administration. Secretary of the navy which was an important position at the time and i think roosevelt was influenced a lot by his experiences in the Wilson Administration. Some of what you mentioned about brandeis, Robert Valentine was with the human Wage Commission some of that is in my book but my point was frankfurter was on the fdr bandwagon before everybody else and certainly there was a populism that contributed to his getting elected lives of all the people in my book the person who was the most populist almost thinking about the people who we would think of as liberal at all today who was always inking about western farmers and the plight of western farmers. He was someone who was involved in Grassroots Movement in a way including he was involved with Grassroots Movements in a way that a lot of People Associated with the house of truth worked but i dont think you are wrong. My book is not about the Grassroots Movement because they are just as elitist as they are today. Is one of the things you did talk about in your talk, the last answer is the issue of civil rights which is the correct movement and wilson has taken a lot of heat. How is it in terms of the figures you discuss, how did that play out with their views . It is a great question. They were blind to race for a long time. It wasnt the most salient issue on their agenda for a long time, the rights of labor and the rights of unions. They thought americas biggest problem was it wasnt an industrial democracy and industrialization created all these sweatshops and that was the issue and if they could only empower organized labor they could solve a lot of the socioeconomic problems in the country. The iron he is the person who made them aware of racial issues in my opinion was somebody will he is thought of as having a clear record on race, Justice Holmes, not only Justice Holmess 1923 opinion on more versus empty but when he denied the stays of execution in 1927, he wrote frankfurters friend harold lasky in one of his opinions, the world cares more for red than black. Those are the worst cases of southern blacks coming before me every summer for stay of execution and in this case where they had six years doesnt even come close to the constitutional violations i see in the south and holmes stayed the execution of two black men from kentucky incentives to death for rape. The same summer. It was holmes that in the late 20s started opening the eyes, frankfurter joined the National Committee of the naacp in the late 20s but they were late to the game. They werent upset about the Wilson Administrations absolutely horrid record on race. Did bother them that the black class was blocked away from the house of truth and being kicked out of federal jobs and really hurting as a result of the Wilson Administration. I hope you will humanize and share with us what with the germination of this story . How did you write this story and what was your favorite part of the research . Great question. I talk at the beginning about Robert Valentines paper, the owner of the house of truth and how his papers were a window into the comings and goings of the house but one other eureka moment during my research, when i was researching the case and came across the case of two black men from kentucky sentenced to death for rape but there execution was stayed by Justice Holmes but didnt know what case holmes was talking about, but i had a couple suspects. So i went through at the National Archives all of a bunch of suspects. The archives had the file from the Supreme Court so i went through the Clerks Office and found holmess handwritten stay of execution in the case and it is actually in the book and it is impossible to read so i type it out and that is a big eureka moment for me because it showed me what holmes was talking about when chastising his liberal friend about being too excited about the case of the southern black. Your favorite Research Part of the story . That was it by far i am interested in the difference between progressives and liberals but i want to give two broad areas and see if you agree with this. Progressives, the emphasis was on longrange collective good without worrying about individual rights. First amendment and so on. An example of this would be the holmes decision on the black woman who was sterilized. She wasnt black. I got an expert in the audience. Okay. Lets put that aside the fact that holmes did say whatever it was. The Eugenics Movement and individual states in the 1920s, the quotas for immigration. I think of that, the quotas duplicated in 1890 census for immigration reform. I would think at the minimum is consistent with progressivism but not consistent with liberalism and then the application as you mentioned of the bill of rights to the states in terms of Fourth Amendment, i would consider that the essence of liberalism but not really in the purview of progressivism. Not that they were against it. It was just not part of their plan. You sound like a law professor trying to get me down on the definitions of progressivism and liberalism. I dont think you are wrong. I think they are both very amorphous concepts. I think even lipman admitted to that, defining liberals as former pr partisans in 1912 and wilson democrats 19161918, principles that liberalism embodies, i think as time changes just like today, liberals call themselves liberals, they call themselves progressives. There was a rebranding progressivism to liberalism. Maybe it was some of their perceived failures of the Wilson Administration. There were a lot of successes on their agenda but i dont blame everything that happened on progressives because there were a lot of eugenicists, harold lasky who started out as a huge eugenicists which i could phone a friend if theres an expert in the audience but there was a wide swath of people who thought eugenics was good science was all along the political spectrum. For holmes to embody progressivism i dont think i am willing to do it. The other thing i might add is the First Amendment jurisprudence is pretty impoverished before 1919. Before holmess opinions and had some in march that upheld the espionage act convictions and some in december or november that dissented from those espionage act convention and before that holmes wrote an opinion in 1909, prior restraint, that was pretty much the state of First Amendment jurisprudence, you could go ahead and publish but suffer the consequences, criminal or otherwise. I dont think there was talk about rights until they started being abridged in the First World War. And when progressives were no longer in power. Exactly. That is my answer but i thought you might be on to something but i think progressivism and liberalism are pretty broad categories and different nomenclature over time. Thanks for writing the book. I read this book a while back. Your book is a bit thicker so probably a lot more to it than what was more general but i wonder did you have any relationship to the gentleman . Is a really good writer and really good historian and i had started my book when he started his so for a while i thought i am not going to read this until i am done. I think he focused on different aspects, he widened his book from beyond the house of truth to other People Living in Dupont Circle and he was focused a little more on foreignpolicy connections to the house and i was focused more on the legal connections and back to the beginning of my talk what makes my book different our access to Robert Valentines papers and understanding who Robert Valentine was and how he was the house visionary and most of the ideas from the house emanated from him and most people didnt know that until the Massachusetts Historical Society process those papers and i was able to look at them but a really good historian. Justice holmes in New Hampshire avenue. Justice holmess house was torn down. Even though he donated along with half of his estate to the federal government where just as house like many of our great monuments is now a chinese restaurant. I think it is 1720 Justice Holmess house. At the beginning of your lecture, you said to liberals and progressives are democrats, do not despair, there was a time in history which is similar to what we are facing now if you werent a supporter of donald trump, if i understand you correctly liberalism was able to flourish or became stronger during this period of obstacles or whatever but was it the same circumstances where you have a senate or a house of the same party . Is similar to the Supreme Court and composition of the Supreme Court and give me hope because if there is stuff going on out there, give me hope. I say im guessing it wasnt the case the entire 12 years the house or senate may have been democratic in those 12 years, i would have to go back and look. I know there is a Senate Historian in the audience who could help me with this question but i am reluctant to make one1 historical parallels and i was trying to be careful not to do that. What my book shows is at a time when things looked hopeless for people who called themselves liberals that they were quite effective. That is my sort of message. When liberalism started, they didnt have a lot of people in the halls of congress, war in the white house who were there people and still they were able to get things done and were quite effective in creating change and fighting for the underdog and that can happen again and i would despair for a number of reasons which i think our institutions and rule of law are stronger than any one person regardless who the president is. I dont think liberals should go into despair because all three houses are in control of the Republican Party especially when history shows they did need political power to succeed. Any others . Dont be bashful. I could start calling on people like i do in law school. I would like to ask you about the relationship between what you study in your book, one thing you havent alluded to that i always understood to have been a major precursor of the new deal, was a lot of the governance that was actually going on in new york state and some of the other more progressive liberal states during that period of time when they were shut out of washington and basically it has always been my understanding that much of what was done in those leadingedge states became a major factor in the policies put in place by the new deal and that was a very Important Foundation of the new deal. So i would be interested in hearing how that relates to the aspect of liberalism you can study. Absolutely correct. A lot of what People Associated with the house believe is political change should be occurring at the state level and i am referring to minimum wage laws, maximum hour laws, rights of organized labor, looking for those things to occur at the state level, peeling like felix frankfurt defending or arguing before the Supreme Court, laws coming out of oregon, they were defending these types of laws, what they wanted for a long time was a Supreme Court to strike down the legislation. Certainly part of the liberal agenda even if you dont call them liberals at the time, former progressives, was to go to the state level, get progressive legislation passed and hope the Supreme Court doesnt strike it down. They put a lot of emphasis on change at the state level but i wouldnt rule out what the Wilson Administration did for them because a lot of things they were able to accomplish during. They were able to start an 8 hour day, it was a big deal to limit workers to an 8 hour day. I think there was a huge emphasis on the state level, absolutely correct. Some of the things roosevelt did in new york from 1928 to 1932 was done with the advice of people like frankfurter and others. That played a huge impact on what they were trying to achieve and is another reason why just because all three houses of the federal government are in the hands of conservatives and not liberals and liberals should give up, great question. That is brandeis. Not seeing anybody else rushed to the mic. They havent cut me off yet but they will in a minute. Another one of the ideas you presented us with is it wasnt until folks in the house, especially littman came to grips with the real meaning of freedom of speech or freedom of speech so what were things like in the interval between the bill of rights and that time. Is it just the things it was never really challenged in any way, so many difficult issues with free speech over that time or we didnt have . There was a lot of repression of free speech because until 1925 the free speech clause of the 14th amendment didnt apply to the states. It only applied to the federal government so states could run roughshod over the rights of peoples free speech and not even get challenged in court. One of the majorities that case was the free speech clause applied to the states. I think where littman comes in, not really on the vanguard each but he sees what is happening with the censorship of the press at home and the press abroad, he writes a famous book called Public Opinion, which is how Public Opinion gets manipulated and people vote based on the pictures and their heads rather than what is actually going on on the ground because they dont have access to the information. A book that seems pretty timely but that is where littman certainly littman was hearing the freespeech dissent so he breaks a lot of people in the house of truth, goes from being a socialist in 1910 to the new republican 1914 and becoming a progressive, and then he takes a dramatic turn in the tribune and he and frankfurter part ways over columns frankfurter viewed as appeasing nazi germany before the war. Littman is a complicated character as are a lot of people in the book. Two things, one, Democratic Party to what extent liberals in the Democratic Party and the Roosevelt Administration, the Roosevelt Coalition recognize they werent doing things in order to keep the coalition together, something johnson finally refers to a 64 being a great demarcation. I wondered about their attitude then which the roosevelts chief advisers said he cared for fellows, southern fellows that liberals are using southern white segregationists votes, their numbers, to stay in power. Beyond the scope of my book, sort of ends in 1933 with fdrs election and culminates with the death of Justice Holmes but you are absolutely correct, theres a lot of literature about this. I think this goes into what my book is about, liberals were late to the party when it came to race and even during the period 1919 to 1933, they werent so great on race and were willing to overlook problems with race to get back into power. The administration went out a way to push people out so they ended did the up towards the Democratic Party even in the 20s before roosevelt and finally what i have heard, got the money from sun valley and that way. Not quite the way it happened in my book so to me what happened was a dispute between them and the ku klux klan over the money and he didnt abscond with any money. He was good at spending money he didnt have. That is entirely different. He is a colorful character but i dont think absconding with the money was in his dna. He wanted to put into the code confederate memorial. The man who bills Mount Rushmore, the confederate memorial became the precursor in the first attempt at mountain carving when it bills Mount Rushmore and i use Mount Rushmore as a metaphor for liberalism. He didnt really finish. Stone mountain took many years. They destroyed what he did on stone mountain. Reminds me of one my favorite political quotes of all time, jean talmadge, the old bigot governor of georgia was accused of taking the money, sure i saw 5000 but i did it for you. Very good, thank you. Thanks for your talk. Most of this is inward looking in terms of the united states. Did people of the house listen to voices on the outside . An awful lot was going on, rising fascism etc. Did that have any impact . Great question, thank you so much. Two people who lived in the house were not us citizens, a canadian citizen working in the justice department, one of the original residents of the house and another person in the British Embassy i am blinking, was also one of the houses original residents and when they went to paris a lot of people at the house end up in paris in 1919 and harold lasky, british political scientist, there was a huge british influence in the house and Huge International influence on the house particularly when it came to organized paper. Frankfurter when world war i started or the us started to get involved in world war i said we cant make is a mistake the british made during the war. He side as an opportunity to reform the Labor Movement to the country so there were positive and negative influences coming into the house and the country because of the houses network that is outside the united states. Anybody else . Thank you so much. [applause] i will be around signing books. Bring it back in. We dont have to do it. [inaudible conversations] sunday, indepth will feature a live conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning author and columnist dave barry. During the live discussion from books and books bookstore we will take your calls, eights, emails and facebook question on mister berrys literary career. In 1986 i moved to miami and been there ever since, if you want to be a humor writer it is the place to be. Excellent place to go. Dave barry has published 30 books including dave barry slept here, dave barrys greatest hits in the recently released best days ever, a florida man defends his homeland. Watch indepth live sunday from noon to 3 00 pm eastern on booktv on cspan2. The reason this picture is here, for five years the last two years im from manchester, england, nothing wrong with us, we dont we do now. We didnt when i grew up so i was ridiculously excited by the concept and lots of reserves,