weekend's television schedule, visit us online at booktv.org. up next, author and columnist amity shlaes, the chair of the calvin coolidge foundation, talks about the great depression, taxes and presidential legacies. the former "wall street journal" editorial board member is the author of five nonfiction books including "the new york times" bestseller, "the forgotten man," which was released as a graphic edition in 2014. >> host: amity shlaes, who's "the forgotten man"? be. >> guest: the forgotten man, who was he? president roosevelt spoke to have forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid, so that would be the homeless man. but in the era that president roosevelt spoke about this inoto the 1930s, they were aware of be another forgotten man. many americans then had learned about this other forgotten man in school, and that forgotten man was the man who pays for th government project, the third party. there's even a littlal yes pa be about the forgotten man, that other forgotten man.ve they say a wants to help x, ther man down there, and b wants to help x, but what's the problem? when they coerce c, the third party into their project for funding x, what if c can't afford it? this came from a philosopher named william graham sumner, the quiet party asco the forgotten man. and all in the '30s they were dueling, it's the poor man, no, it's the taxpayer. so that's the question also today. that is the question also. >> host: in your book, "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," you write the big question about the american depression is not whether war with germany and japan ended it. it is why it lasted from 1929-1940 from hoover to roosevelt government intervention helped to make the depression great. >> guest: thank you for quotes that introduction. this is a book i wrote about the 1930's because we all learned something about it in school and that was the new deal tried hard but it wasn't perfect, roosevelt's government plan and hoover before him, but at least it was good and it was in the right spirit therefore, let's love it. but the new deal wasn't lovable economically speaking, nor were hoover's interventions because they hurt people. how can i say that? what is the measure? the most clearest measure is employment and unemployment didn't come down. what is the second measure? we are sitting here with the stock market at a record but the stock market in the 1930's didn't come back. so the new deal and hoover failed and that is evidence of the "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression." >> host: you list the unemployment rate in each chapter. 3.3% in 1938, 1941, 18%. 1937 it was down to 13.5. but then 1938, 17.4%. what happened then in >> guest: this was the depression within the depression. we had other depressions before that were not great but this was the dureration and severity. just when it seemed everything was getting better the was a crash again. what is interesting you raise that because that is a controversial set of numbers. people will wonder why was the unemployment so terrible in the later '30s. many economist have come to me saying they think they know why. the government policy made hiring people too expensive. or the fair labor standards act or the national recovery administration and davis bacon all pushed labor prices up and to level employers could not afford and therefore they failed to hire and the unemployment of the '30's was epic. >> host: what was the national recovery association? >> guest: the government's deal that would stimulate the economy was given this giant plan to make the industrial sector booming again. roosevelt signed it early on it in '33. when you look at law it is a bunch of political impulses expressed on a piece of paper, instatued and then enforced. so the impulses were economy of scale is good. big is always better because at that time we are all hostage to fashion. the economy of scale, the bigger is better, was hot. bigger is always better and you want to question that. i am not sure that is necessary for recover. and another premise was consumer choice is bad. and it is like what do you mean by that? if the consumer picks he slows up the assembly line. every car should be black because it is uniform and uniform is faster and better. and they leave that is united states was failing because we were too diverse and chosey. you tell that to the starbucks' shareholder because it is a product premised on chaoice. we can take that extra 18 seconds to pick what milk we want in our coffee. in a famous case we talked about in "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," you could not pick your chicken from the coop anymore. that was just some of beginning principles. >> host: how dig did the government get during this period? what was the change in revenue? >> guest: the government got a lot bigger. until the 1930's, the constituents -- states -- had a bigger government than washington. you could get sick there. there were swamps there. that is what coolidge's family thought. there wasn't air conditioning. the state capital is what mattered. and president coolidge always said united states in plural. the states were what matters. and then under hoover and then franklin roosevelt and by 1936 if you look at the charts from the government you will see all of a sudden wow, the federal government is bigger than the states. that had happened before but only in war. now in peace time. and we didn't go back. that was the changing. was the spending as great as it is now? nowhere near as great. might be 5-10% of the economy not 30-40% or whatever it is when you add it up. but it was bigger than before and more important was the expectation it was the redeemer or the savior. >> host: amity shlaes, who are the sheckters? >> guest: they are a good story. when you think about hobby lobby. we have great government law, some like, some others, hobby lobby has a religious concern about the health care law. maybe it relates in their case to something that is important to the owners which is contraception or abortion. in the 1930's there was this nra and it was challenged by a case that had an element of religion. the sheckters were kosher butchers in brooklyn, new york. i like them very much. one of the great bits of fun was researching them because they didn't expect the government to come along and make them heroes but the government challenged them and indicted their chicken business for breaking rules including letting people pick their chicken. the government contended they had sold a sick chicken, they were paying the wrong amount of minimum wage or people were work different hours than the nra put in place. they had endless rules. they were indoicndicted and sel politically to be the case to test the nra because it did have to be tested. they felt quite ambivalent about it because they were for roosevelt. >> host: you write they were frustrated the government didn't understand the consequences of its own sick chicken allegations. to sell a sick chicken broke the nra code and that was all the government lawyers understood. but to suggest the chickens were unfit were to suggest something they viewed as far worse. that they were not good jews and to suggest their kosher slaughter house wasn't kosher and unworthy of customers so they did something worse than anger them they had offended their dignity. >> guest: you have two bodies of law. you have washington law and you have the higher power. in the census, we looked up the sectors and it said their father, rabbi and what does that mean? what it meant was he was a serious father when it came to religion. they would be shamed in their market if they sold a sick chicken. and today health is a big story. one baby is sick it is number one on the news. but they had no anti-biotics so if meat was bad, it was common to be mad. milk had tb all of the time. so this is a life or death allegation for them. you see one body of law up against another. they took their kosher law se seriously. there was a tension. there is an element to jewish law, this food law, that makes sense. it has its own health code. so they had one old law and one new law fighting with each other. >> host: who won? >> guest: the sheckters won. the supreme court found were them. and this is the overturning of the great centerpiece of the new deal. the nra by the high court. >> host: continuing to read from the "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," clearing out the corruption seemed to be the new dealers best way to recovery. 1933 was a year of experiment and 1934 would be a year of prosecution. >> guest: thank you for reading that. it is so true. what happens when the recovery isn't of the quality you expect? well the economy was definitely recovery year over year. you have amazing growth numbers but you are not getting back to where you started. the government got angry and began to assign blame and go after companies and prosecute in a new way. one was the poultry business. in the "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," i talk about insul who made the opera house, and the l-train, and he wired to city from the period after the columbia revolution. he was wiped out and people in chicago never heard his name. there was an erasing of people, of business leaders, of prosecution by the new deal. president roosevelt called businessmen princess of property. >> host: but, amity shlaes, was there conflict during this time? was there people speaking out against this? or was it pretty uniform that people were supporting fdr and his efforts? >> guest: people knew business had some responsibility in the crash. there were corrupt people. mr. whitney here in new york as an example. the economy isn't getting better so maybe we should blame them more. roosevelt thought the public was on his side. he won 46-50 states so a lot of people were on his side and didn't think it was so bad going after rich people. but there was decent, particularly in the newspaper, it was fun to read the papers, i read them every night through pro-quest, you could see a lot were leery of if prosecuting would help. they went after the treasury secretary and predecessors from the other area. they went after the treasure secretary from the '20s. they ordered the lawyers to go after mr. melon because it felt good. very brazen and political. one secretary's acts brings down another. the newspapers noticed this and they were less progressive and less leaning than they are today. the newspapers fought back quite a bit against the new deal. >> host: when you look at the 1930's how did the federal tax code change? >> guest: the great achievement was to bring down the war tax levels. during world war i they were pretty high. coolidge brought them down to a top marginal rate of 25%. when you poll people that is what they think rich people should be paying now. when you poll people their answer is 25% on how much rich people should pay. roosevelt pushed it even higher so that -- i don't know when our parents were younger it was in the 90% in the 1950's even. roosevelt said no 25% the rich have to pay a lot more and let's push it 60%. he liked wealth taxes. the most preverse tax for tax fans of the new deal was an undistributed property tax. let's eat at your essence. that was watered down but it was a big new deal. to get the rich people that are holding on to their money. >> host: here is a letter from fdr you include in your book "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" dear commissioner, i am inclosing my income tax return for the calendar year 1937 with a check for $15,000. i am unable to figure out the amount of tax for the following reas reasons and he goes on to list them because the president of the united states can't figure out the tax code. >> guest: i like this letter because roosevelt sounds so human. this book is now a cartoon book and he drew roosevelt and the artist tried to make the face of a president kind of mischievous and kind of lovable and that is an example of him playing lovable and a little bit humble -- i cannot figure out my taxes. but the dark side of that he could ask and not get in trouble but other people had to make a choice and a lot of us have dealt with the irs they don't also tell you what is right. there is a lot of uncertainty and that causes fear. they were going after people. so it was ironic that roosevelt himself couldn't figure out his taxes. >> host: welcome to our monthy in-depth program with one authorer his or her body of work. this month we are in our new york studio with amity shlaes. she is the author of many books beginning with one based on her education in germany the empire within. "the greedy hand" is another book followed by "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" and then "coolidge" is her most recent book. and why a graphic novel? >> guest: this is a cartoon histhis history of the great depression. this is like movies. not like art. they are not stupid. it isn't dumbing down. we took "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" man and made the whole story in pictures. and some of those are little. you can see little andrew melon in there being disparing because his tax rate has been overruled. a lot is about people not getting what they wanted. we tried to capture the human of them figure out their policies are not working. in the back of the book there is a cast of characters and they are all drawn beautifully. people have used it as a learning tool or a gift for clients who they want to poke out because it is a fun take on it. >> host: there is a super hero, though. >> guest: it is windle murky. i said there is a hero in the story who gives voice to everything i was hoping i might say myself if it were accurate. windle was the electricity man who thought he would light up the south and they were working hard and he was confidant and a good company. and the government came along and he was a reasonable man and a good diplomat and he said i will work with south and divide it up and instead and the government trashed his company. and he got angry and what is is wonderful is he wrote so much you can use his language. he became angrier, and he says by putting our stock in the tank you are hurting the whole country because we can't hire people. he did it well because he wasn't bitter. so i love drawing him or seeing paul draw him and he comes out in the end with a girlfriend, a lois lane, who really existed. that was fun to draw her, too. and thank you to the family who helped me learn about him. there is a brother of his who is a great attorney. if this book is a dean and it isn't roosevelt and i guess it is henry morganfall and he was like rom emanual. he had the boldest things the government was too afraid to say. he is the demon in the cartoon version. a demon who is lovable, though, because he was thrown out of government. >> host: he was head of the secretary of agriculture? >> guest: he didn't make it to agriculture even but he was very smart. he was thrown out when roosevelt ran for reelection because he was too far left and he went off looking for a job. we are all human and i admire people that serve even if i don't agree. >> host: 202 is the area code. 258-3880 eastern and central 258-3881 for the mountain and pacific time zone. also send a tweet to us or make a comment on our facebook page and finally also e-mail is an option. amity shlaes, you seem to be working your way backwards through history. started with the '30's and your last book is coolidge. >> guest: if they can make a prequal in a movie they can do it in a book. i like positive stories. the "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" could be called how they blew it. how they wrecked our economy. they being democrats and republicans. paoliticia politicians through policy. i wanted to write a book on how you fix it. in eastern europe they say it is easy to make fish soup from an aquarium but it is hard to make a living aquarium from fish soup. but in the 20's they fixed the economy. it is an inspiring story and i looked at harding and he had a terrible reputation and coolidge who doesn't have much better reputation and you look at who is misviewed by economy. coolidge made the economy better. and that became a life work for me: restoring this hero. c-span gives coolidge time but most people don't. let's see if "a week on the concord and merrimack rivers" give him the rating he deufsh -- deserves. his tax rate was lower than reagan, he balanced the budget, he cut the budget and today you have so many guest on c-span and they talk about cutting the budget and they mean reducing the rate of increase. coolidge cut the budget. you can see to the same government tables in the national accounts that he cut had budget. why didn't we know about this silent, quite guy. i became intrigued and wrote his bio. >> host: in your book "coolidge," you write coolidge quote wasn't proud of being president in the sense of being vein about it. he walked around quitely and still wore suspenders and that made him a quaint site in the great corridors. starring saw col coolidge wasn't afraid. >> guest: that is right. there are different notions of how you use an office. bully pulpit, right? that means fun. it is my pulpit and i will enjoy it. we know people who do their job like they are driving a race car. coolidge was more respectful and said i am serving. i am here as a servant. of course i am vein but i am going to try to suppress it in the name of service. i was attracted to this. a lot of others are attracted. at coolidge's birthplace i took a snapshot in plymouth notch, vermont where he is from. when you look at his grave the head stone isn't bigger than the others. the harding monument is huge. ms. harding is probably to blame for that. he wasn't comfortable with mount rush more. maybe their heads are too big. he didn't believe in the great man of history. he was all about service. i very much like -- you think of cal ripkin junior always showing up. cal's are about service so i don't think it was an accident. when coolidge fixed the bad environment because there was scandal from harded is he was meticilous about cleaning up. i think he did make a living aquarium from fish soup. we rarely meet people like this. he waited hated scandal and expectation of the president. we would cut his name after his suit because someone would sell them as a the president and make profit. he was hard on his family on what they accepted from gifts. he made his son dress up for children. he children didn't play around the whitehouse like it was a playroom. but it was like we are serving the public. we are not here because of ourselves. >> host: how did he become warning harding's vice president and what was the relationship between the harding's and the coolidge's? >> guest: i think he wanted to be presidential candidate and he had a good argument he could be. he was governor of massachusetts and as now there was a big issue of how far should public sector unions go and maybe very far and take over cities. that happened in seattle where there was a strike. there was turmoil after world war i with inflation and the government wasn't paying them enough and the workers were angry and went on strike. the policeman of boston went on stage and coolidge was governor of massachusetts and he was at the top of the command for the police officers. the nice police man who were his voters, mostly irish, he was famous for having the irish votes. they had rats in their station and such so they had a reason were this. coolidge backed them up saying there is no reason to fight against the public safety anywhere, anytime. that range across the nation because the public sector was going too far. and he was a governor drawing the line the way a governor can and everyone looks. wilson, the president, lined up behind the governor. he had showed up a sitting president. wilson said that is probably right, you know? i don't think the police -- because there was rioting and deaths. and coolidge had to call out the guard in this state. everyone riding in on the train with bayonets. it was terrible. people were hurting children with his police strike. he had an election coming up and thought i might not win this. you could see that in his correspondence with his father. maybe i am not going to win this time. i hurt my own people but it was the right thing to do. it was like reagan and patco. but he was reelected by government and that give him standing and he went to washington with harding on a ticket of calm things down. no normalcy was the phrase. ms. harding was a toughy and hard on ms. coolidge. ms. coolidge was younger and every color looked good on her and ms. harding had one color that looked good on her. ms. harding was grand. but there is no evidence of dislike between coolidge and harding. harding did something -- he invited the vice president into the cabinet meetings and coolidge was grateful. it is purgtory being vice president sometimes. senator lodge was from his own state came coolidge a hard time. he was sad when harding died in the summer of 1923. >> host: before we go to calls, very quickly, where did calvin coolidge become president and how long had it been since he had seen warren harding? >> guest: it was months. and he hope viewers will come to plymouth march where he was sworn in. he was a notary, justice of the peace, some of our loyalist members at the coolidge foundation are notaries. one of our board member is long-time head of the national notaries. that is something like that that is very american. they said how do you know you have that authority? and he said no body told me i couldn't. that is the way the country was at the time. >> host: that was in june 1922? >> guest: it was august '23 at plymouth notch, vermont. please visit us. we will read allow the bio and reenact with the family. >> host: you keep saying us. what is your association with the family? >> guest: i am chairman of the foundation. we have a house. we are partners with the state of vermont that does an outstanding job of managing this historic side. please bring your grand children. you can sign up to read aloud from the book. >> host: how did you come to that position? >> guest: it is a great honor. it has been there a long time. it was founded by the son of president coolidge. it supports the state. we built a building where we have classrooms for kids coming all year to work with our educator dianne campbell and y two directors there who make a coolidge blast if you want to blast about a president who saved money and said no. and we have rashad thomas and he's radioing and blowing bloging for us and he is doing an audio version of the autobiography. and if you don't come, we have a web cam like at a ski resort so you can see plymouth notch and what the weather is doing by going to the site. >> host: martha in maine emails i have listened to you for years on c-span, why did you switch from the economy to bioography? perhaps it isn't a big jump given the slant to your perspective. >> guest: thank you, martha. i like the economy, but most people think through people and not merely ideas, so hopefully one could do both. coolidge was a living economic avatar for markets. he really was president economist. i made the trip and thought it was worth it because i learned a lot about economics through a person. i am someone who learns better through a person. many people learn about economics and a lot of other things -- patience, the law, lead lead leadership through coolidge. >> host: prior to working on book and the coolidge foundation what else have you done? >> guest: i am a journalist so i worked at the dow jones for mean years. and the editor there and the reincarnation or was of president coolidge. president coolidge was the prein carnation of the editor reworked for. robert leroy bartly. he is gone now. if you look at coolidge smile's and his smile yowl see them as the same. and bartly had a cackle and i understand that coolidge had a cackle. the cackle of the thoughtful man. so a lot of people on your show were trained by bartly. david brooks who writes for the new york times. one writer after another was shaped by him and his great leadership and character. >> host: he was the editorial page editor? >> guest: the trusties of dow jones called him editor. sometimes there was tension about this because the new side said are we not the editor over here? but they gave that title to bob bartly. imagine a shop where you are trained. that is where i trained. >> host: 202-258-3880 or 20 202-258-3881. peter go ahead. >> caller: i live in washington, d.c. right outside of washington. and in the downtown area there is a large brick building built in the 1920's called the district of columbia jewish community center. and in it, there is different pictures from different time periods. it was built during coolidge's presidency in the '20's. and the thing that struck me was that president coolidge went to this building when it was opened in the 1920's. it was an unusual thing for a president to do. at least i thought. he went there and gave this wonderful, wonderful speech about how jewish people and christian people and all people of the united states could be friends and neighbors and this is a tribute to the jewish people and his administration that this great building would be opened up and i got the impression, i have never read this, but i wanted to ask you he was a good friend of the jewish sit zins of the united states >> host: is that your question? thank you. amity shlaes? >> guest: i have been critic criticisized about not talking about this more in the book. you can see him with catholic and prodesstan. he had a respect for faith. he would go to several dedicati dedications. coolidge did a conference call for a jewish group in the '20's that was famous because he said i like about your people, to the jews, that you try to take care of your own. that is a very old fashion idea. to all groups when you take care of your own i respect that. you build hospitals and what not. and i respect you because of the charity you have done. he understood how important faith-based charity was. that is gone from the community. in the same conference call that he did with the jewish leaders, he talked about budgeting and he said it is kind of an obsession. it makes be seem like a scrouge but you understand if i budget well. i don't budget because i am mean or a scrouge, i budget to help us all. he confessed this into conference call with jewish leaders. but you can see him take negative about the kkk. >> host: you referenced someone named rashad and now we have a call coming in from a rashad in lebanon. this is him! >> caller: this is rashad. >> guest: can you tell us why you came to coolidge? >> host: what do you do were the coolidge foundation? >> caller: i am the program associate for the foundation. i organize all of the events. so like our 4th of july reading. that is his birthday. and we will have a high school debate program in july and we need judges. so i organize lectures. i research about coolidge, i blog about him, i run social media for the foundation and any other things that matt and mitt amity want me to do. >> host: and how did you come to the foundation? >> caller: amity came to my college i was attending. i was a behind the scenes help for the speaker and we started talking about coolidge because i read the book a year previously. and he hit it off. and i was about the graduate with my masters in political science and she said you would be great for this job and applied and interviewed. >> guest: what do you like about coolidge? i think his great thing about him is coolidge found him. >> caller: i love him because he left the government smaller when left office than found it. i think it is important to have limited government. and i also like his stability. the fact he didn't have hard edges. he was kind of a new england original in my opinion in that way. he didn't elbow the people around him or his opponents. i think in politics today people running for office need to immolate coolidge in that regard. we don't have to see our enemy as the devil. >> host: anything you want to add? >> guest: no, we are lucky too the young leaders at the ass associati association. >> host: >> host: one e-mail i get is we may never see the likes of him again. we seem on track to value personality more than platform. >> guest: i don't agree. i think the caller is rate only when interest rates are low. when we have economic trouble in a country like the united states we suddenly look for character and someone that can execute certainly policiepolicies. when the "coolidge" book came out it was the same time ms. thatcher died. and i had to write a column on what she was like. the tory party would never have picked her when times were good. they wanted to be compassionate and forgive student debt or whatever it was. put nasty edges on the conservative party. but england had real economic trouble and someone had to say we have to cut back. and then the more substance candidates. even the tough ones become attractive in that situation. so it is hard for any party to have a dramatic policy oriented candidate. interest rates will not always stay low in the united states. hopefully we are preparing to have people of substance ready to lead when that moment comes. >> host: you refer to or calvin coolidge refers to himself as an administrator. >> guest: i like that. he read george washington a lot and coolidge referred to washington and the bible -- he was steeped in the bible. he said i don't want to be king or monarch but he thought of his job as presider. the united states, plural, is led by a president. >> host: devon, harbor springs, michigan, you are on the air with mitt. >> caller: thank you for answering my call. i was wondering about the depression. wasn't one of major problems deflation that they had the taxes and wages to get people to spend money because the prices kept going down? my mother and father are children of the depression and they admired franklin roosevelt and i think the major thing he did was keep the country was tipping into extremism left or right. thank you. have a good day. >> guest: thank you. and devon hit on the two things we have heard. one is deflation can be d devastating and the other is that roosevelt kept us from going somewhere horrible. he was better than hitler. and we are lucky we have that. that is what we group and many of us feel that. the interesting thing about deflation. when you look at the 1920's there was deflation and the economy didn't die. what is deflation? you listen to the ads that run on television and they are all about a lower cost. deflation is lower prices. it can be good. in the early '30's the was a lot of deflation due to international events and a bunch of factors with it being had perfect storm. but it is hard to make the case and few economist do that the inflation caused the depression. it caused a bad year or two. the strong deflation of the deal. that is the answer to that. what i found in reviewing for the forgotten man book and this book had a lot of research was america wasn't ready to go c communist. i love a quote i found when researching the '30's by a european journalist named odet coin. she came over to see john lewis and how we are having or revolution and she wrote the flaber gasting thing i have found about american labor it is conservative. that is a way to say to the caller i don't think we need to say roosevelt saved us because as a people we were not ready to be extremist. >> host: where did you grow up? >> guest: in chicago. >> host: what did your parents do? >> guest: my mother was involved in politics and was working with david miller and my father was a real estate appraiser and developer. >> host: where did you go to school? >> guest: college? i went to yale college. >> host: what about graduate school? >> guest: i didn't get a graduate degree. but i went to berlin and wrote articles for the news week or new york times and helped correspondants with their letters from berlin and at the time the wall was still there. >> host: the empire within came from that. >> guest: when i went over to germany it was the '80s, the wall was there and it didn't seem like it was going to change. i was there. and why should it change? it was our side and their side. i didn't think it was going to change. we had two kind of stories we wrote. there was a correspondant named ted sangar who i worked with at news week and we wrote about how people did currency arb triage and take the money from the east because it was make money compared to the west german money. or we would write is hitler coming back? i interviewed a man who was a guard of hitler in the bunker. >> host: this emails is from harry ram. given germany's history its need for a reliable source of energy and its experience since 1914, will germany play west or east or play a greater role? >> guest: i think she will play a bigger role. when i started my career, the english people were suspicious that germany shouldn't be unified because they could be nazi again. you could see that in thatcher when the call came down. they did a good job of unifying and being a wonderful country. it is close to russia. you don't understand the constraints upon germany until i saw the thickness of the wall. you cannot understand germany until you see russia. same with scandnavian. like who they are up against. i think they are optimal sich situated to be a broker. they have a lot of wisdom and historical memory and just a very important, interesting country in which we should place or faith. >> host: >> host: how many generations before they lose that title of being the former nazi? >> guest: we are about there. maybe ano .. hyper inflation more than 90 years ago. they were that. and that is one reason germany wasn't the country to have the euro crisis, greece was. some things people remember more than one generation. i think that is one of them. and you go. so it is important, you know, you see many germans -- it wasn't the way it was 15 it is not the way it was 15 years ago. sitting here, i have a lot of faith in german policy. >> host: amity schlaes, did calvin coolidge deal with the fact that germany was going through what it was going through? >> this is a weak area for calvin coolidge. he says you see stones coming down the road, 910 that are coming go in the ditch before they get to you. he was not a neocon. he didn't like to intervene. he understood that europe needed lower interest rates to payback its death. imagine you're in the 1920s like a person under water with their house. they couldn't pay the debt it said on the paper they owed. they didn't turn that much. so the treasury secretary said let's see if we can get lower interest rates and that is the reason they lowered interest rates in the united states and they are faulted for that although lower interest rates that the coolidge administration pushed were nowhere near as low as ours today. absolutely, you would rather have the counterparty refinance and go bankrupt and default and not under that president where they didn't understand at the same time they were being nice with interest rates they were being askedy with terrorists, republicans were the terror party and for tariffs very strongly. tariffs make it hard to earn money. it was an absolute bitter failure and contradiction by the republican party which coolidge never fully acknowledged. unlike very much that he had a friend who worked at jpmorgan international finance and figured out the tariffs were not good for europe so he shifts coolidge bunches of books to instruct his friend, a guy who knew in college in tariffs and economics and coolidge said i read these books and you don't have to send them to me. don't condescend to me. i discovered in practice tariffs work. what did you mean by that? you are discussing what have a they won overseas. here is what i discovered in research, figure out how could coolidge before tariffs and this is what our kids debate in the summer. they debated tariffs and protection. the answer is from the point of view of a little company, it looks good. it protect your prices this year. and labor from employees we want more money and higher pay you can't pay the higher pay unless your prices are protected a you have no competition from abroad so coolidge was for tariffs because his party was. he was a party man but also because tariffs reduced in the short term labor unrest. i had never figured that out but imagine you have a factory, you don't want competition from overseas. maybe you can pay better wages if you have no competition. that is lost in our modern memory. economists say forget what it was like to be a factory owner with competition from europe or australia where you have to lower prices and can't play the wages. it was that scenario, it was a common scenario in coolidge's economic education. >> host: edward, washington, new york. you are on with amity schlaes. this is booktv. >> caller: good afternoon. good to talk to you again. depending how you feel about the current president, mayor of new york city, they employ the same techniques whether they succeeded or not in raising taxes on their rich, promising the middle class today. >> guest: thank you for that question and good to talk to you. the coolidge foundation has no opinion on that, very bipartisan foundation. coolidge himself when you look at the record tended not to like that kind of thing. i personally because i'm a journalist and not to like much big government. i don't think government is the answer in new york. new york has the blessing of being a gorgeous pedestrian trading capital, the world comes to it because of that. the question is everyone wants to live here. that is where peter and i are today how much taxes can it bear and when you raise the tax rate what happens is those millionaires go right to florida and only come here sunday is depriving new york of its capital gains revenue stream and you can see governor cuomo acknowledged that. the mayor may want to study it. new york capital gains revenue i like the umbilical cord of new york city. that is what keeps it going and pays for the schools and pays for all the little buses to take senior citizens are around, pays the tensions, and when people choose to realize capital gains somewhere else, new york taxes their income so heavily in new york lose is the revenue it needs to live so that is usually an education process. we have a new mayor who is kind of a redistribution a stand class warrior but doesn't understand in new york when the wealthy thrive there is trickle-down because that is how the pensions are paid. >> host: from your book "the greedy hand: how taxes drive americans crazy and what to do about it" you write about the progressive tax system, government the fate lucien, we will tax and tax, spend and spend and elect and elect said roosevelt's adviser in a mary moment. federal tax revenue jumped 10 is of billions by the korean war, the government's collection from income and profit, taxes, a $50 billion, 25 times what it had been in 1940. there were those who questioned this. but you write that most economic thinkers and politicians from left to right embraced it. even the most famous of the right wing eminences, austrian economist's endorsed a progressive rate structure in those years allowing that, quote, some progression of direct taxes may not only be permissible but necessary to offset the tendency of indirect taxes. >> very interesting. i don't remember writing that. no day. this is a taxable cairo to a long time ago. the greedy hand. that quote is from tom paine, the greedy hand of government making our prosperity it's for a. i think you want to ask listeners do they know what progressivity is, most americans don't. what it is is you have a base rate and the rates go up as you earn more money so your last dollar is taxed at a different rate from your first dollar. your average rate is not your marginal rate, your top rate under a progressive code and these interesting surveys i have written where people don't even know what it is, they know the rich should pay more. that is a proportional system, flat tax the rich pay more, they just pay at the same rate but more dollars and great confusion about that. is often used as a -- to attack a class, it is a way of garnering revenue to spend money in new york or anywhere but it is also a class attack. let's make it harder to earn the last dollar and one thing we worked on often at the wall street journal and i know the journal still does, the history of the wall street journal and go back to explain when you tax the last dollar, the marginal dollar, people might work less. they might give up, they might go to another state, they might go to europe or like some board, they might rearrange their incomes so you can't see or put it in bermuda and so on. it is a deterrent. should i try the extra hour? that is the concept i was trying to gatt asked in "the greedy hand: how taxes drive americans crazy and what to do about it" and reagan made the code less progressive. president bush allowed taxes to go up, president clinton let them go up some more. president 43 bush down a bit and we brought them up again. it is a toy for politicians and that is another of its negative aspects. the progressive rate, if you know who your top rate, equally bad is people give up. we definitely need a tax structure people can understand. we don't have that right now. >> host: next call for amity schlaes comes from jeff in oregon. >> caller: good morning. i was so pleased when i turned on the television and found out you were going to be on. i enjoyed the "coolidge" book immensely. the most underrated president, one people don't see or hear much anymore and some of the accomplishments he made, humble man and understated man. you spoke about illinois governor dan walker, probably the only governor in my 16-year-old lifetime who wasn't indicted. is that right? >> he was but only after words. in illinois a lot of some go to jail, you wonder about that. savings-and-loan issue. >> anyway -- >> guest: were you hoping a wouldn't say that? >> caller: no. i grew up in ireland the next state over. franklin roosevelt i have always been frustrated by the fact that he was so popular, his programs did very the with anything to help the nation recover. the question i have, roosevelt became after a few years more of a celebrity than any thing else. i liken that to obama as a celebrity president so even though he had fairly good opponents, even ralph landed in 36, roosevelt crushed him in the elections. how did he become almost godlike to so many people in this country if i may put it that way? >> host: thanks. >> guest: thanks. should temperament. it was worth a lot. it was his own disability and people knew about that. he was fighting so they could fight and to this day you can't help but admire, when we drew roosevelt for the cartoon book i didn't want to draw in a wheelchair because i didn't want discussion of it but wanted to capture his energy. we looked in the cartoon book and show him swimming for example. by 1940 the election you are asking about, the war was coming, people were not voting on roosevelt's economic policy but on who is the better war leader and roosevelt had served in the department of the navy in world war i, he was a navy president. he knew every nook and cranny of the east coast. it was on the atlantic at least in the start. what presidents were elected on, and you see the right one. even if he served before. beginning 19 in "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" you read the republicans in 1940 were bitter. the outcome would sideline not only their party but their record of accuracy when it came to the economy. selloff in the 1930s they would not get credit for it, the great era of their isolationism was what stood out and there bitterness made them look small. >> guest: that is the way it is even now. one reason i like coolidge, the executive director at the college foundation, he was so positive. he would criticize substance but not people. in the longer run when you criticize people you fail. in the short run you win. you see the gop making this error over and over again. let's attack those people instead of their policies. and those people who like economics is what will trump economics every time. in news and opinions, that much more important. >> host: how close to wendell willkie come to winning? >> guest: he won. >> host: more of -- did have a chance? >> guest: i believe he won vote for vote more than hoover in the back of the book, that is huge. wendell willkie -- hoover was a businessman. willkie was a businessman, hoover was too. will key beat hoover. and he was good analyst coral politics. he was sort of like i don't know. a lot of people we know in that way. i have taken very seriously, he did go squishy in 1940 and that contributed to his loss. six months before the campaign to win. >> host: jack tweets in to amity schlaes, was coolidge's decision not to run in 28 related to his sense of humility or something else? did he since the boom would end? >> guest: both. coolidge did not want to be responsible when the boom ended. he knew how hard it was for government to say no when the boom ends. he new government should say no. he -- had been president quite a while by 28, a term and that half, was failing. the people in that office have been more or less killed by it, harding and woodrow wilson, a difficult thing, he didn't want to be there to say no because he was exhausted, coolidge vetoed 50 times while he was president. the greater reason he chose not to learn was like washington, he writes about this quite eloquently in his autobiography, better change presidents from time to time because presidents to the effect that everyone panders to presidents and they become awful vein. president bush xliii, he understands that and works hard to make whatever he does now with his library and so on not about him. but about service. it is awfully hard to leave the presidency when you are in the center of the world and become no one but you have to do it for the republic. coolidge made this point. i want to that was his party grateful? that he was so noble? not at all. who is going to win? what we do, they did not say he did the right thing. >> he announced in south dakota. >> he announced it and i don't think that was an accident. i have to go to south dakota, a nice correspondents, friends with heather wilson, president of the university, i want to go, here is what happened, went to south dakota for vacation for a number of reasons, one is that was an ad states that didn't do too well, agriculture, trying to get votes for the party, in other words wanted to promote american tourism, taking off and as it happened while he was there, very nearby, the sculptor was sculpting a way on the rack to make mount rushmore. he noticed that, the board room made him notice and came calling, gave me appropriations for this great busts of theodore roosevelt, lincoln, washington and jefferson. did coolidge approve of this? not particularly. did he give appropriation. he didn't really like big presidency. and and you can see his incredible discomfort with his adulation of presidents and the border gets carried away and coolidge should be on the run, he did not like that. and even now, there is more to that story if you want to talk about it. if he didn't like the grandiose executive. >> host: can you comment on the political relationship between warren harding and calvin coolidge? >> guest: interesting people are asking about this. some correspondence among the hardings that said can we have someone else instead of coolidge next time? but unfortunately harding passed, he died in the summer of 23 when that swearing in of coolidge happened, coolidge was absolutely meticulous in his demonstration of respect, mrs. harding stayed with her dog, i believe he was an airedale, a special black mourning ribbon, and the willard, mrs. harding felt like moving out. and rather like lyndon johnson, peter, to fulfil harding policy to perfection but was the caretaker when lyndon johnson was caretaker after the sudden death of president kennedy and coolidge didn't say new policies, unfortunate accident gave me this job. i will fulfill what we promise in perfection that he executed the same things harding had promised but i would argue more efficiently. he took the farther. >> host: ron, this is booktv and c-span2, amity schlaes is our guest. >> caller: i have a show comment and then my question. you might be sure people know that there is a broadcast delay between what they hear on the phone and what they hear and see on tv and my question is have you done a comparison between calvin coolidge's time and the more modern government, seems like the government keeps getting bigger and bigger and more invasive on our personal rights, i was wondering coin. >> host: got it. >> guest: great question, yes. i have written a lot of articles. my book about coolidge is a history book. there isn't much today in it because history speaks for itself but i have written a lot comparing coolidge and so do other authors. one is charles johnson, why coolidge matters which addresses directly what analogies we can see today. there is another book, why coolidge matters, that was published before mr. johnson's by the college foundation and the notary. all kinds of politicians, democrat and republican, michael dukakis is in fair in that state. whatever party, both parties are state comptroller's. they want to know about coolidge, the maestro of budgets. and whatever is at the state level officials have to control budgets and turned him over and over again. >> host: ron from stillwater, that is the reason when you call c-span and get the call answered and they tell you turn down the volume on your tv you don't get confused by the little bit of delay, just listen through your phone, it will be on tab. john in grapevine, texas, you are on c-span booktv. >> thank you for taking my call. my question, i enjoyed the book "coolidge" very much. what was it when you decided to write the book, were you surprised there hadn't been that much written about calvin coolidge? and what really drove you to write the book? >> guest: thank you for the question. when i was writing "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" i had forgotten the 20s were pretty good and i did not see a lot of books about them so i looked and i thought oh my gosh, this man, the president personifies the 20s, let's try to do him. there are some wonderful biographies of coolidge, all stand on the shoulders of other people and hopefully we don't travel on them, we honor them. one was -- a beautiful economic biography of coolidge which i like very much. the boarding school, the big fat bio of coolidge years ago and interviewed the president, why coolidge matters, multiple volumes and more to come. bill bryson wrote about him in 1927. one way to ask this question again is why look at texas? it is what the united states could be the growing faster kind of a model. i look at coolidge, he is what we could be, very inspiring. he is better than ronald reagan in many ways. oh my gosh. that is awesome but true. i like the dare of that. let's figure out how much better he is. >> host: then cecil from alabama. you describe coolidge as a free call to "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression". would you suggest the new reader 3 "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" before "coolidge". >> guest: a suggest you read "coolidge" first. we have our opinions about which show to see first. i would say read "coolidge" first and also please read the graphic novel. is a new genres for standard history as far as i can tell all those there is a book march about lawmaker john lewis and civil rights is beautiful, please have a look at this. we hope to translate it into spanish. because we have so many hispanic readers who are interested in the material, sophisticated about it but we are up for 500 page book as indeed most americans are. >> host: bill calling from jacksonville, fla.. >> caller: good afternoon. i would like to get an opinion from amity schlaes. please name the conservative presidents serving since 1900. what is the import? >> guest: in the conservative -- >> host: finish your thoughts. >> caller: i would like to get the import of the answer sheet provides. >> host: what do you mean by that? >> caller: what is the significance, what does it mean? >> guest: one of my conservative presidents is john f. kennedy. john f. kennedy understood free enterprise is very important and you can see that in the new book that i am sure has been on this show. another is coolidge, another is reagan. i like a lot about eisenhower myself too, and his humility towards the job recalls coolidge and you see the debate about what kind of memorial eisenhower should have. and when he wrote home, he didn't make a show of himself. what are you getting at? >> caller: bill is gone. i apologize. >> host: what about ronald reagan? george w. bush? >> guest: i like the bushes very much. i was a germany scholar when germany happened. i was astounded how well president bush handled that. the fall of the wall. we could have traveled all over it. we could have gotten away. it wasn't the news he expected. maybe we didn't like the way they did a currency union. it made labor too expensive in east germany forcing unemployment. we could have gone over and said you can't reunified germany, doing our way economically but the u.s. pretty much sat back, you want to give credit to the statesman who were involved. condoleezza rice. i haven't been thinking about this today. secretary of state, who all went and said it is okay for germany to reunify and i respect that and president bush behind them on germany and schedule more or less, germany reunified. much more irruption in england. they had strong murphy ling's about germany. i will never forget president bush xli did that and the skill with which he did it, he saw the moment of history, and about president reagan has been said the viewers have heard this before. i will say about. xliii with the my worked at the george bush presidential foundation that he understood the economy, he fought to reduce government when he could in the tax area particularly. those tax cuts as he came in early were very good for the economy and made a recovery of quality. >> host: you are watching booktv on c-span2. every month we have one author on at his or her body of work. this month author amity schlaes. we heard a lot her history, some of the places she worked and she is also the author of these books, germany:the empire within came out in 1991. "the greedy hand: how taxes drive americans crazy and what to do about it" was 1999. "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," new york times bestseller, 2007. "coolidge" last year came out, another best seller and just this year the forgotten man -- "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression". the graphic edition came out and i want to let regular viewers of booktv know that every month we have a new book for our book club and this month we have chosen "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," the either the original edition or the graphic edition so if you would like to read a long, economics, not the depression, you can file a lot of things into it today, amity schlaes, "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," our book club selection for the month of june. pick up a copy or digitally get a copy and join us in reading. if you go to booktv.org you will see at the top there is a tab that says book club and click on book club and beginning this afternoon we will start posting your comments. we want to hear what you have to say about "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," our book club selection for the month of june. the producer of this program is tanya davis in washington, she works with the author prior to the show, we try to find out a little bit more about the authors and her influences and the books she is reading right now. here is a look at what amity schlaes said. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> booktv covers hundred the law programs all year long end here's a look at the events we are attending this week. look for these to air in the future on booktv on c-span2. wednesday we're covering michael waldman, president of the brennan center for justice and new york university law school, talking about his book the second amendment:biography and speaking at the national constitution center in philadelphia. thursday night booktv will be in columbia, missouri at the daniel boone regional library hosting a talk by william moon who will be discussing his writing and best-selling book blue highways. that same night we will be covering civil war historian james oakes on his book the scorpion sting:anti slavery and the coming of the civil war. end new york historical society. and then on sunday june a we will be at the center for african american history, art and culture in south carolina to record south carolina congressman james cliburn talking about his memoir blessed experiences. and look at the author programs booktv will be covering this coming week. for more go to our web site booktv.org and visit upcoming programs. >> here's a look at some books being published this week. former deputy director of operations at the center intelligence agency recounts his 32 years of service in good hunting:an american spymaster's story. in sao ride:america's first woman in space journalist lin share details the life and career of the first female astronaut. journalists milled bernstein argues juvenile prison system does nothing to real-estate young offenders and needs to be reformed in burning down the house:the end of juvenile prison. in america:imagine a world without her, the sociopolitical climate in the u.s.. civil rights scholar charles cobb describes the role guns played for self protection in the 1960s in this non-violent stuff will get you killed, how guns made the civil rights movement possible. was suspicious vehicle and combine the trail of the ultra rich hijacking american politics, can vogel, a reporter for politics go, the fact that the citizens united -- citizens united decision had on politics and democracy. look for these titles in bookstores this week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and booktv.org. >> you're the upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around a country. booktv is talking with authors and publishing executives at the publishing agency's annual trade show book expo america in new york city. we see these interviews and more. we are in the twitters role that fast, it features the first sacramento black book fair and on saturday june 21st of franklin roosevelt presidential library will hold their 11th annual roosevelt reading festival which features numerous author talks on the thirty-second president. look for the rest of the reading festival in the future weekend and let us know about book fares and festivals happening in your area. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> host: amity schlaes, you list willy brandt as one of your greatest influences. who was he? >> guest: it may be influenced by him were his speeches as mayor of berlin. during the period when the east germans, and in preparation for this show, speaking out from berlin to communism that they were doing wrong, in english you say the soviet union gave her lap dog the east german regime, a little bit of spring, a little bit of leash. booting up, wrecking all of international law by building this in my city and the way he did it was so dramatic and tough, though little mayor in a big international game, geopolitics who stood out for his toughness like a tiny dog himself. and touched by the bravery of those speeches. why did i mention him? the audio of that just became available so you can hear old german radio and hear exactly what transpired in german democracy. we have the same thing to hear the speeches of mayor daley of chicago and what he said in the 60s. >> host: you also list a woman named sophie ravens. >> guest: that was my fifth grade english teacher, we all have a teacher like that, she was wonderful teacher, i have a lot of faith in her students, and that one teacher who says you can do it cheap is that teachers at the university of chicago laboratory school in 1970 so i hope her daughters know how much we edge toward her. sophie raven. >> host: laboratory school. >> guest: belongs to the university. >> host: was there anything different about it? >> guest: john to the great progressive, their briefings that were different. supposed to be a laboratory for education and the education students at the university of chicago use it for a little experiment, they want to -- intrusive. >> host: is that the school of the obama girls? >> guest: it is. one of the wonderful things about that school is it was always integrated. so i remember having black friends and white friends. i thought was normal and only learned later that that was not the average for the rest of the country and you will see great friendship came out of it across raises where race did not matter. >> host: 202 is the area code if you want to talk to amity schlaes for this month's in depth, 585388 zero, 585-3881 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. if you can't get through on the landlines you can get through and social media. @booktv is our twitter handle, facebook.com/booktv if you want to make a comment on our face book page and you can send an e-mail to journal@c-span.org. next call for amity schlaes comes from greg in ohio. >> how are you? >> host: please go ahead. >> caller: my question is, has to do with the portrait of calvin coolidge that hung in the capital room during the reagan presidency. i find that significant and interesting. i want the author's thoughts and comments on that. >> guest: president reagan gave the coolidge portrait prominence by putting it in a prominent place. i believe it was moved after reagan somewhere else in the white house. i know it is somewhere else prominent because i have a picture of myself with president bush taken under it, apparently many visit to the white house, i don't know which room it was in so it is not as though coolidge was cast out of the white house which some allege. was moved a round. the significant part is the moving in of coolidge, many republicans don't like him and reagan understood, i heard stories about coolidge, reagan when someone tried to assassinate him he was in the hospital, reading a biography of coolidge, he cut taxes how many times? 1, 2, 3? i hope i can cut taxes that many times. reagan admired coolidge. >> host: your economic philosophy might be surprised to see paul volcker on your list of greatest influences. >> guest: he was a man of character and he does what he thinks is right now matter what party it is and i like that very much. he's a great friend to my work even though he doesn't agree with it even though i'm not a monetarist and he has a lot of that in his philosophy, this is the former fed chairman, he has been extremely respectful of my work as has fortunately for me alan greenspan's of there is something about monetary authorities that i like and they like me. what i see with paul volcker is why is he here besides we are friends? one interest rate needed to go up, he put it up even though he knew that would force a recession and the fed chairman has to do that again one of these days. hope coolidge or paul volcker decides to do. >> host: you are working away backwards as we talked about a little earlier. depression, fdr, willkie, coolidge. what is the next project? >> making a trilogy or protect. i would like to make it visual as well so it goes forgotten presidents, calvin coolidge, forgotten man 1930s and silent majority is the book for which i am under contract and this book is a history of postwar america and the silent majority you can just say is america that was a little suspicious of skeptical of the progressive project and marched forward and did well, and if the private sector would prevail. the emphasis in this book is a new emphasis for me about one dear to my heart and my passion which is urban planning. i like the great philosopher jane jacobs who didn't like big planners to build things for government purposes or private sector purposes that had little to do with the community and organically action will be jacobs and i are alike in a lot of ways so whatever party they are from, a big group comes and there needs to be a 30 story tower building here because we feel like it and an attack lawsuit doesn't mean it is good for the neighborhood and i hope if i can to add value, my portrait of the abysmal work of urban renewal, that terrible failure of urban renewal along with welfare, along with all the great society programs but especially urban renewal. how many cities have we wrecked? we asked earlier why do people like new york? we like new york because it wasn't totally wrecked by robert caro. this will be a controversial book, the great empire builders, the man who build the highways. and run a highway through greenwich village, the children you know want to buy condos because they are pedestrians so i want to write about the kind of feeling of the soul of cities by modern planners. planners are to blame for a lot. >> host: next call for amity schlaes is from gary in st. simons island, georgia. >> caller: good afternoon. on number of your columns, particularly want to ask you in "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" after the 1936 election, roosevelt and the democratic overwhelmingly democratic congress asked a tax increase as you mention in the book the unemployment rate, slightly gone down after the depression, then jumped back up and world war ii saved it. fast forward, i don't know if you do any predictions. and chief justice roberts, do you see any parallels between the two? that is the basis of my question. >> host: i personally do. i think -- coolidge said give the administration a chance to catch up with legislation. too many lies create a social chaos and when nobody knows the answer everyone starts to feel sneaky. i see a parallel between some new deal laws and the affordable care act. others may not. >> host: amity schlaes, for whom do you write today? >> guest: i write for forbes print. i am honored to appear with david mouth is, my good friend, the economists and alza "national review". i want to say because i have been riding a couple weeks, "national review" is an awesome crowd who make a lot of noise, they are a party that is fun to be with and they are particularly interesting on the subject of faith. wherever economics and faith come together which sometimes they do i never met such an interesting audience. >> host: do you maintain a web site so people want to get the aggregate? >> guest: right now is all coolidge and the college foundation, we will be doing all summer bringing young people love to the coolidge foundation to debate economics. i write for the coolidge blast. >> host: do you have an association with the manhattan institute? >> guest: i have an important prize won by casey logan in the university of chicago, the highest prize, this is a prize for free market journalism. it is very exciting. this will be awarded on the 25st of june, the two finalists' behind casey were bertrand dr. oz of india for india grows at night comments the co-author, sorry if i mispronounce it, for another book about india because india is the right now. will go free market or not. we hope they are coming to this dinner on the 25 food. why did casey's book win when our jury shows and what casey does which is hard to do, that issue of marginal tax rates we spoke of before. he establishes not what the law says the with the effective marginal tax rate what it really it is. it doesn't have say in the statute that the rate will be 39 but because there is a surcharge that is the functional effective marginal rate. it is hard to do but what he is doing is the work of showing what the rising tax burden -- >> host: casey mulligan is an economics professor. >> at the university of chicago. i don't believe i ever met him but the jury found his book extremely solid. that gets to our theme of substance. it is not polemic, it doesn't say i don't like the other guy because of obamacare. it says here is the evidence that our recession was made worse by government redistribution, basically indicts the argue that income inequality needs to be fixed published by redistributing in our attempt to stop in the quality we made the recession worse. that is a statement. >> host: casey mulligan's book the redistribution recession. amity schlaes, you say you are reading elizabeth warren's book. >> guest: elizabeth warren is concerned about bankruptcy and how hard it is for people at the bottom and i share that concern. so her approach might be different from mine but her concern and she writes about it beautifully is worth paying attention to. nickel-and-dimed is a book that some readers heard of, listeners, trash when you live at the bottom. all of us agree that at the bottom and the middle it could be better but to my degree how we solve that problem. >> host: ralph nader wrote a book about how the left and the right eye coming together on many issues. >> guest: it is true because it is a circle. i wrote about emma goldman, the great left-wing anarchist and ayn rand, the great libertarian. two russian girls who came to america and made a lot of trouble that very interesting and not that different because there is right anarchy and left anarchy, closer than we believe. >> host: frank from the center of warsaw, ohio. >> caller: thank you. i am fortunate to get a call in. my question was under the roosevelt era when you mentioned the the working were not ready for communism that much at that time, i read whitaker chamber's book witness and those statements where he almost alluded to the right hand man of roosevelt and how policies were so effective in the war from the communist influence of our government more than just stealing secrets, etc. and america be trade:how the russian archives allowed confirmation so i am wondering, as our society moves in the direction of communism more than a was then or less or is it about the same? i see a lot of push back on the debates. i don't have a feel for that. >> host: thank you, very quickly. >> host: go ahead, frank. very quickly. >> caller: i can't remember the name of it, korean war that sponsored by south vietnam on trips to south viet nam, and young children planting them for their service and maintaining gravesite said and in effect saying thank you, north korea, south korea, thank you that we are not north korea and one during that. >> guest: they are two questions. the first is what happened in the 30s and there's a lot of debate about that. is the top--a hot topic. many new dealers were influenced by communism and others have written about that including ben steel and diana west, when did they were traders, did they work for the communist government, i am not an expert on that, harry dexter white is especially and did work for the other government, the other side. you want to drive that distinction because if you get into a fight about who actually works for communism you ignore the important part which is which of our policies were influenced by communism or for that matter mussolini was a great hero in the 30s and that is what was important so to that, i don't think we are going communists now at all. however i do think you're getting at this too, those who knows that freedom is good, giving away the future when it comes to education and we are awfully cavalier about it. what is the emphasis of politics and is an election year, we can only talk about the candidates. and young people know or might communicate with them. and for the rest of my life to be sure younger people know stuff, they can make up their own minds but actually have to know stuff and that is what the graphic novel is or the debate program with the college foundation, must have a young chance to engage in these ideas with a come out. >> host: kevin e-mails in to you, amity schlaes, i always felt the modern-day equivalent of calvin coolidge is mitch daniels, former governor of indiana and any thoughts about governor daniel? >> guest: there are a few coolidgees i am fond of and what is governor and president mitch daniels, one of minds, that is important too. another is paul ryan. do i endorse these people? i am just saying who has a coolidge like bent? that is to say cares about budgets viscerally. some of this is temperament. talking about coolidge and many, even fired white house housekeeper when she spent too much. that was coolidge and which candidate is the government he likes to say? who likes books? who likes to keep books? coolidge would have loved excel. >> host: you writing a biography of calvin coolidge his salary was $75,000 which was a lot of money back then but he had to pay for food and housekeeping. >> guest: he offended a lot of the white house staff because he wasn't very good to upper. and they wrote books. just as bitter and one of them, the housekeeper, told her story to cosmopolitan. and published my time in the white house and wanted to succeed and she went around in horse and carriage and shopped for the white house and she would say look, mr. president, get this bread, we talk about pork today, we mean it figuratively especially on c-span, budget, pork, items in the budget. she said look, coolidge took it literally, look at my dinner for the foreign diplomats. he said it looks like an awful lot of hand me, you are spending too much of my money. ..we have the documents where hr successor, who kept better records and didn't shop in specialty shops, went to, i don't know, the supermarket or something, the new supermarket. of all her savings and every time she overspent, the new house tokeeper, she would -- housekeeper, she would explain why. so this is not just he was nasty, though i'm sure he appeared nasty. it's that he was principled. if he wanted the nation to save and spend less government money and veto things people might even need or wadly want -- badly want, then he better live quietly himself. and he did. >> host: herbert hoover, that's the first federal presidential library, correct? >> guest: i believe so, yes, sir. >> host: and calvin cool you can was the president right before that. >> guest: right. coolidge wasn't too friendly to the idea of a federal presidential library, and i've spoken about this with president bush and other leaders. the presidential library law is a great gift because the government supplies the librarians. they have a wonderful librarian, alan lowe, at our library in dallas by smu, right? that's a government -- the presidents have to build the building. and president bush and, you know, his father before him and certainly president clinton and president carter labored mightily, and they raised the money for the building. you know, it's a partnership. the president raises a lot of money, and the goth supplies -- the government supplies the scholars and archivists. it's a wonderful marriage. that was too much for calvin coolidge though, he didn't like the idea of being partners with the federal government. though he gave some things to the library of congress and the archives. he thought a politician should be friendly with the state. that's where it was. i almost laughed. i shouldn't laugh. or even with the town. so he kind of cut off his archival nose to spite his face because he gave a lot of stuff to the library in northampton, massachusetts, where he spent much of his career as a young attorney, rose in politics, and he gave, you know, some to, some of it was in vermont. and in his spirit, we partner -- we, the coolidge foundation -- with the state of vermont. we don't partner too much, although we've taken grants before, with the federal government because the president would have liked it that way. and john coolidge himself, we did get a large federal grant, called it pork. the son of the president. the coolidges have a bit of a hesitation about taking federal money. long live the coolidges. it's very interesting. but as a result, there's no grand library to coolidge. he would have liked it that way. we're going to make the coolidge site in prelim moth notch a grand monument to restraint. very interesting. the anti-- how do you make a monument to someone who hated monuments, especially to himself? we have young people debate there and see his beautiful house. he didn't live over the store like margaret thatcher, he was born behind it. there's a difference. one donor gave the money, so the wires could be buried so it would look old-timey like williamsburg. another got easements, paid for easements so houses wouldn't be built all around so that prelim moth notch would look like it did in coolidge's time when it was a tiny electricity-free village. so it's a different kind of monument but very, very compelling, plymouth notch. >> host: michael phillips asks via e-mail, for an english major from yale, where did you get your profound knowledge of economics? >> guest: oh, thank you for calling it profound, i don't know if it's. one is i worked in eastern europe, and when you work in eastern europe or are position zed to it -- exposed to it as i was, you realize what doesn't work. and that is a collective government. i want to give credit to my father, jared shlaes, who is an economist though he is in real estate. he taught me a lot, and his business experience taught me a lot too. finally, wall street journal. got to say that, right? >> host: elaine is calling in from getted that da, colorado. thanks for holding, you're on with amity shlaes on booktv. >> caller: yes, i've enjoyed "the forgotten man," and that's the only booktive read from you, but i would like to ask you what the teapot theme, dome scandal had on the harding and coolidge, and i'll hang up and listen to your answer. thank you. >> guest: oh, thank you. so elaine wants to ask about teapot dome. teapot dome was the scandal of the harding administration. what they wanted to do sounded kind of good. the government had extra oil. well, they should privatize that. sounded like something the reason foundation might advocate, right? privatized excess reserves. but the way that the harding administration did it was too close to friends for comfort. friends got contracts, people who gave money, new people who got contracts, and so it became teapot dome which is the name of the place where the oil, where the energy was. a scandal that lived down the centuries in name. there was another scandal much relevant to today regarding veterans. they had a new veterans bureau. it was supposed to build hospitals. instead, people took kickbacks, and the veterans suffered in pain. and remember, many veterans in that period returned from world war i, one-third disabled, and there were no antibiotics. so you can imagine all this money was spent and often for corruption. the head of the veterans bureau, charles forbes, ended up in leavenworth prison. so that was harding, you know? where it was his -- whether it was his fault, it was his fault at least in his choice of friends, and coolidge was extremely horrified by the whole thing. you can see the physical tension. there was, i think it's fort myer, a cannon went off every morning at sunrise and he'd say how i hate that sunrise noise, because he knew that every day as vice president he'd be deeper embroiled in a scandal that was not of his own making by any means and about which he probably knew very little. so as president he endeavored to clean up, to shine up the presidency again. and i think he did a pretty good job. >> host: and just a quick clarification, marsha grace e-mails in that when you were talking about hur newest book -- your newest book, that you mention to be talking about robert moses, not robert caro. >> guest: oh, i'm sorry, you're right. i'm getting tired. i'm sorry. robert caro wrote about robert moses -- >> host: right. >> guest: getting tired. i love robert caro's book. >> host: and david holmes e-mails in: in the '20s, fascism rose to the commanding heights of the economy in italy and germany. our current president and big government supporters appear to want government again to command the economy here. is there anything coolidge had to say in opposition to fascism in the economy that we today can use as a guide to protect our constitutional freedoms? >> guest: oh, well, men do not make laws, they do but discover them. you didn't really like a lot of law which comes with big government, fascism or no. he always respected the individual. have a look at his vetoes. they're poetry. you know, i like veterans, but if i help one group, maybe i'll hurt another, that forgotten man. right on the senate web site you'll see beautiful statements by coolidge. >> host: amity shlaes, "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," is your book, and david e-mails in this interesting fact, the german version of "the forgotten man," has a subtitle that translates to "a new view of roosevelt, the new deal and the state as savior." why the difference from the english version? >> guest: well, actually, i don't have it in front of me, so i can't confirm that, but it doesn't sound wrong. because the german version understood that so-called austrian economics would get the forgotten man. and austrian economics isn't about roosevelt, it's about the state being too big. hayek was a kind of austrian, right. >> in that pill soft call school -- philosophical school. and the germans and the austrians understand all this philosophy about how government being too big. and i am sure that germans like to poke at roosevelt, too, because he was their enemy in world war ii. but the book itself was not changed. it's the same book. and most of the german leaders i hear from -- readers i hear from want to talk about economics, not president roosevelt. >> host: brad is calling in from studio city, california. brad, good afternoon. you're on booktv. >> caller: good afternoon. good afternoon. thank you for taking my call. >> guest: good afternoon. >> caller: i'm a big fan of your books, mrs. shlaes. i got both "coolidge" and the other one, "the forgotten man." question for you, right next to calvin coolidge is my book called the forgotten conservative about grover cleveland. did coolidge have a thought about cleveland? >> guest: i don't know, i don't think so because i would have nosed. you know -- noticed. you know, someone who's very interesting to read about is the poet, robert frost. there's a lot in common robert frost and coolidge. and robert frost actually campaigned for grover cleveland as a child, he's that old. and he got it. it was another kind of democrat, right? grover cleveland was a democrat from today's democrat. all three of them respected property rights. >> host: john in berry, vermont. did i say that correctly? is it berry, vermont? >> caller: yes, sir. can you hear me? >> host: okay, please. yep, we're listening, please. >> caller: greetings from a moxie addict in the socialist paradise here in vermont. great show, amity. i met you last summer at the coolidge event. and you do such a wonderful job with the young folks. but the reason i was calling today is i recently finished a book called "the unique inauguration of calvin coolidge," and it leads -- >> guest: oh, yes. >> caller: and it leads into my two questions. that they drank a lot of moxie that night, and also what i alluded to with the socialist paradise remark. i'd like to put up a big banner in our statehouse that says "what would calvin have done" and beg our vermont legislature today to, please, listen to calvin. and i'd like the hear your thought on it. oh, also is there any chance of getting brian lamb back as a guest? i met him last summer. >> guest: oh, we'll consider it. mr. lamb from c-span came and judged our kids, and mrs. lamb, and then they -- mr. lamb interviewed the kids all dinner about their hopes and dreams, and there's a video of that on youtube. he did a wonderful job. so, question, let's see -- let me -- >> host: what would calvin do? >> guest: calvin left vermont and went to massachusetts, but his dad did serve in the legislature while he was a younger politician. in vermont, well, he'd be like governor jim douglas who himself has a book coming out. he would say, well, moderation in vermont, please, try and cut back the government where you can, where you can, right? that's what he would do. i have great respect for vermont. there are vermonters of all kinds despite the reputation that vermont is uniformly progressive. so we'll say that. and rust orton was one of them, i believe was he not the founder of the vermont country store? is that right, listener? oh, he's gone. anyway, we have plenty of friends of the old-fashioned coolidge in vermont and plenty of friends who might not glee with coolidge's tax policy but love other aspects of him; his respect for the constitution, for abraham lincoln and so on. so vermont is a great place for coolidge, and, of course, we should get a banner. i love the idea. >> host: amity shlaes, on our facebook page a lot of the comments are along this line, and this'll lead to a question. as if the 1% needed one more propaganda, revisionist history, etc., a lot of that. ask then jost -- and then joseph has this comment: amity, retrograde thinking is interesting, but nonsense for our future. globalization and the digital revolution has changed everything. forward, creative thinking is what is needed. >> guest: oh, thank you. well, i'll ignore the first part and do the retrograde part. don't worry about the first part. the retrograde part is what matters. what i noticed about coolidge is how intensely modern he was. his main theme was networks. he believed in networks. as a young man, he studied the trolley network which was really electricity, right, of western massachusetts and what it did to commerce. and in that time you could take the trolley to amherst there north ham on the and back again, and -- northampton and there were three or four different lines of train you could take from boston in to western mass. if you're interested in trains, a lot of us are interested in trains because as vain as we are about the success of our internet network and our linking, we've failed in trains and in some areas of electricity, right? so i see a ton modern in coolidge. the other thing he liked was aviation, aviation wasn't unmodern, right? he believed in aviation as a vehicle of diplomacy. he sent charles lindbergh down to mexico. and i'll say finally to those technicians who say history's old and retrograde, those are the same technicians whose stocks were really challenged in the market crisis, because they were unacquire that policy -- unaware that policy and the history behind policy could affect stock prices. history affects stock prices. it affects bond prices and interest rates. so those who operate in a purely technical area do so at their peril over the longer term. >> host: speaking of peril, you write about tax prepares in your book, "the greedy hand," and i just want to read -- >> guest: that's a long time ago. >> host: i think you'll be able to follow it. unlike other advocates, tax experts don't have a different opponent every time they go to trial. their opponent is almost always the same, the irs. and that irs is not just any opponent. it is the one in the enrolled agent's case at at least that certified them in the first place. i knows them and knows that they have co-signed the returns they prepared. rejection by the irs can be the end of a taxpayer -- prepare's career. >> guest: well, that's right. and it's even more true today. maybe that -- i don't know the technical format, but that's the creepy thing about the current era, is that it's all about who you though and how you get along. so if you go to see an attorney or a tax preparer or a school or a bank, who's on the other side? i'll give an example with the bank. when you go to talk to the bank, sometimes you have -- i have the feeling here in new york that i'm talking to senator schumer, not the bank with. because the bank is talking the regulation that senator schumer wrote, and it's afraid of its regulators and senator schumer. that means the bank isn't working just for me, even if it says outside home equity loan extension or whatever. everyone is we holden to someone -- beholden to someone else in a not transparent way, in an opaque way, and it makes us all creepy and nest. i mean, i read about this in chicagoland, actually, and a problem with chicago. for a city that's an options city where trading is important, chicago is a lot about deals and who you know, and it always was, right? .. >> guest: since the crash and the government response to the crash, where's government supposed to intervene, who are they friends with, where did they go to college, who did they go to college with? we should all be treated anonymously and equally. the government response, and that would be both bush and obama, was too long and too favoritist.am and we're all going to live with the consequences of that forever. >> host: jeff, fargo, north dakota. hi, jeff. >> caller: hi, guys. i've got a question. i think, i've byrne doing a plot -- been doing a lot of reading lately, and i think the number one bill that has sentour our country in this hundred years of progressivism is the federal reserve act of 1913. 19 once this next collapse comes will be get back to the george washington and thomas jefferson and take of our own because this $120 trillion of unfunded liability will bury us. >> guest: the list is talking about the law that created the modern fed. it was created as a club for banks to help each other with liquidty in the crisis. their responsibilities have been expanded over the years and now the fed is supposed to run everything. i don't think at the time many people thought the fed would be running the economy in the way we should imagine it should now. a lot of us are concerned with this. thank you for pointing that out. >> host: next call is dean in stockton, california. you are on with amity shlaes. >> caller: thank you for that wonderful biography of coolidge. you changed my mind on him and i think he should rank high and that is based upon my reading in your book. my question for you is if coolidge was here today and he was looking at social security and the medicare entitlement program and how that is making it impossible to lower marginal tax rates and grow the economy, what would he do if he was president and what would amity do if you were president on the issue of entitlement? >> guest: social security isn't that hard. you freeze the benefits so they increase with inflation but not with real growth and that reduces much of the problems like scholars you know have shown. maybe you invite some immigrants in and they pay a social security tax and that takes care of the rest. medicare is much harder. medicaid is harded. those other things. but i would start with something you could do in social security. both parties are making the good, the enemy of the best there. it should be every high school's project to solve social security because a high schooler can learn statistics and do it isn't that hard. i would talk about the cutting the capital gains tax. that would make it easier to cut down other tax rates. the real question is when are challenged and we will be, then all of the steps will be more obvious. i think coolidge would be for a flat tax and best friends with steve forbes. he likes clarity and understand complexity was as bad as a high rate. he would have certainly cut back the veterans service even though he had great feelings about them. and he would have been careful about foreign engagement. >> host: from amity shlaes' book "the greedy hand" social security is a fantasy. a comforting pleasant fantasy. one that has sustained many millions of americans over the decades but a fantasy. washington promised from the start that social security would be a trust. in reality there was no trust. mainly cash flow from con tributers and went out the same day to senior citizens. this was the root of the deception. >> guest: it is. it was edited a few times but that doesn't mean it can't be converted we just have to do it yesterday or today over to something -- if you go back and look at the literature, i think in the "the greedy hand" i had pictures, roosevelt said you have an account as if your name is on it but the supreme court didn't think so. they have cases showing it is their money and we have no account. i think it would be to good save social security and made it a truth not a fantasy because that would restore trust. i have had debates because they would like to stop making payments to wealthy people and i think everyone who paid in should be getting something out of it and not because i think the rich deserve more money but because we should other than this. and in the articles, it is a very important story, right? $2 $2 $2000 from a president but only 6-10 were published. and go for a meeting with the president and the president says exactly what the editor feels, oh, my, gosh, you published ten articles. and then i was asked what did coolidge do because he took out of his pocket a check that was already ready for $8,000. he gave it to the editor. and my students say sucker. why did he do that. it says in the contract and it did say regardless he got to keep the money. what a fool! he did it was, and this is so important, because he wanted people to know he was reliable. that building of trust is what is missing in our trenches of this culture. we are just look, i fooled them, ha-ha. well everyone knows everyone in the world and we remember how we are treated. so it certainly isn't good civics, character, and not even good business to mistreat people you work with. what coolidge was saying is my articles were not what they wanted. how can i improve? you would be more willing to tell me if i give you back your $8,000. much of what is wrong today could be fixed if he head this. >> host: what drew you to coolidge? >> guest: just that's he was quite. not many know his tax rate was lower than regan. and we are betting he is worth restoring because he has a lot it offer. >> host: e-mail, scranton, pennsylvania, earlier in the program you accused of new york mayor of engaging in class warfare, a study done by the congressional budget in 2011 found the top 1% increased their income by about 280% after taxes over the period of 1979-2000. at the same time the bottom people grew by 8% and doesn't this prove there is class warfare going on in this country? the very wealthy against everyone else. >> guest: thank you for that question. i don't believe it matters if the rich are rich but i do believe it matters when the lower makers are not making more. use unemployment as a big program. entitlement taxes continue to want to hold on. i will always ask and i share with you what does it look like at the bottom and what i i do changing it. and the number one thing i would say is for people to invest money here and they will create better jobs. there is nothing more important. this is an inquality debate that is relative to the question of why do young people not earn more. i would ask that. why is the process for starting a business so dense? why are all of the rules there to block when they start a business? why do they have the student loans? one reason is not wealth. they have the student loans because the universities cost a lot because the education is so subsidized. it is all messed up. figure out a way to become great yourself rather than fall into a negative culture of envy. coolidge said you can't help the weak by pulling down the strong. >> host: next call comes from george in wichester, massachusetts. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i had the privilege of visiting the coolidge center in west plymouth and been to the western store and everything you want to know about him is there. i picked up a cassette last time i was there by jan cook -- >> guest: jim cook, yes! >> host: please finish your thought. >> caller: was coolidge's father wo working for dun straight? >> guest: his father was sheriff, he did a million things, but as far as i know he didn't work with bradstreet but he might have. the voice you were speaking of jim cook, cranky yankee, is a coolidge impersonator and he is going to be at the event on july 4th. he is a wonderful reader and actor. he has played coolidge at a lot of my parties for coolidge, too. >> host: michael is in chevy chase, maryland. >> caller: hi, it is michael pact. we are working on a film about calvin coolidge and it is an exciting project and i cannot wait to get started once we get the funds. my question is why did she approach me, and what do you hope to get out of it and accomplish. >> guest: i will tell all about this. coolidge is so great we cannot just be trapped in a book. he needs a graphic novel and a movie. on public television there are not many movies about a lot of our history and certainly not about coolidge who is an in between for roosevelt. michael has new film about admiral rick over and did work on hamilton that attracted me. michael and i and many others are hoping it make a movie about coolidge that doesn't treat him in the throwback way or you know he had great personal tragedy but always looks at the tremendous economic contribution. michael is gone? i will say it is michael pack. man fold production. i thank him for calling in. >> host: in your book, "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" you sent a bit of time on fdr's court packing plan. why? >> guest: it is a big piece of history. fdr found the cases were overturned and he got angry and the drawings of his anger of very good. he said i am going to change the supreme court. and he had the court packing plan after safely winning a big election. 46-48 states. he said if they are too old, some of them can go. we drew him questions the compitance because of their age and you see that today, too. maybe they are too old? the justices didn't like that and fought back and roosevelt's legislation didn't pass and some people said he went too far. that was the story. however many of the cases that the supreme court heard s subsuquent to the packing effort were favorable to roosevelt. so that was with they had the court saved its own self going in the liberal or progressive direction. >> host: ruby is calling from riverside, california. >> caller: i admire fdr because he took on the special interest and fought for the people and established many work programs. my dad was in the ccc and i remember he got the economy going. isn't a reality these elite big corporations and special interest are influencing everything as proved on the bill myer show alec: influencing public legislation. this doesn't sound like socialism but facism to me. and it means the cuts are going to hurt the people at the bottom especially with no jobs. i don't understand this or am i image all of this? >> guest: thank you for your solid and civil questions. it is true there were big interest in america that were conservatives. the trust and the big companies who got their way. roosevelt and his cousin didn't like them and we had an anti-trust law and action. right? and that is one special interest group. roosevelt on the other hand created his own special interest group. we are speaking of franklin. senior citizens. the veterans. the worker. and that helped him win the great election and rewarded them. no one should be in a group. we should be seen as an individual regardless of race, gender and so on. and that went away with franklin roosevelt and it was all about groups. he liked women's group and thought they should join with labor and fight for political advantages. you see one grouping with the trust who were for the tariff replaced by another political grouping. i agree we should be aware of them but i way we should be aware of both. >> host: what was the relationship between coolidge and hoover? >> guest: not pleasant. >> host: why? >> guest: a lot of this isn't about what your politics are like. it is about what you are like. hoover was the smartest guy in the room. i have a hard time liking him because he is arrogant. coolidge said rude things about him. not public but he wrote them down and we can read the books. he was secretary of commerce and vice secretary assistant of everything else because he butted his nose in everywhere. he was like the puppy that pushes himself in everywhere. it really bugs coolidge. no body is perfect but this really bugged him and it didn't show advantage because he would get sour with hoover sometimes. and hoover same saying i have of of these votes. and if you have them you better keep them. when hoover had to run again in a terrible time when they needed the gop would loose coolidge was sick. his heart was bothering him and he went out and campaign and gave speeches for someone he didn't like. there is interaction between coolidge and sterling, his secret service man, and they would say when the down turn comes they will want him to spend money but not enough and the democrats will come in and spend even more. he thought hoover wasn't like him. that temperament thing and would cause trouble and was more of a progressive and by that time coolidge was no longer a a progressive. >> host: what was his relationship with the tr family? >> guest: very interesting. the daughter of roosevelt was his good friend. they were in the same circles. mr. longworth mattered. he was an important republican and was speaker of the house or something like that. alice came to like president coolidge and president coolidge came to like her and when ally was going to have a baby she ran to the house and told ms. coolidge who was was a beautiful, nice lady. coolidge lived under his shadow of roosevelroosevelt. obon his on -- on his honeymoon he went to canada and on the papers cause roosevelt this. as he grew up, as a politician governor and in washington, he wasn't roosevelt's kind of progressive at all and you can feel the tension. coolidge didn't believe in sliming your peers so you will not find a lot of it. >> host: charles in connecticut, go ahead. >> caller: i wanted to ask you about the person who edited the book review session of the tribune and was featured in a book called "the making of middlebrow culture" which was about the attempt to treat the general reader of someone of intelligence and had an interest expanding their horizon and someone like virginia west, someone you like, could garner an audience. would you stab middlebrow culture of the '30's with whatever we have today. >> guest: i think it would be called highbrow culture, wouldn't it? because we are less bookish than we used to be. she was the girlfriend of wilky. and he was married. it is sad, but true, can't change the truth so we draw it. he was his mousse and helped him figure out he cared about the forgotten man who wasn't in a particular group. middlebrow is a little mean because it has a tone that is c cond scending. we can't even imagine how important the tribune was. and laura ingles rider daughter and dorthy thompson, the woman who challenged hitler and it made the discussion interesting. we are loosing that now. you can see in the cartoon book the artist loved her. see is the most beautiful in the book. and made a lot possible in the 1930's. >> host: from our facebook page, did coolidge transfer donte's divine comedy for fun? if so, has it been published? >> guest: i cannot find it, but i looked. he studied aaitalian and latin t amhust and there is information about him falling asleep in greek. he had a wonderful classical education. julie nelson, at the forbes library pointed out a letter that said i want my son to be educated as i was. i don't want philosophy to be changed at all. so his formation and knowledge very literary for a president was important to him. >> host: amity shlaes, coolidge has lost a lot of talk in the whitehouse -- lost his son -- >> guest: things were going well, they missed harding and they had two sons. and calvin junior defies expectations. he was the second son and worked in the tobacco fields outside north hampton. someone said if my dad were in washington i sure wouldn't work in any tobacco field and calvin, jr. said if your father were my father you would. he understood service. and someone wrote a letter now you are first boy. and he said i am not first boy because i didn't do anything to earn that title. he didn't like derived status. what a wonderful child. and he was taken in the cruelest way by infection. they had no anti-biotics. he was 16 years old. he was off for it summer and it was because of a tennis blister that who died that went septic. and you can read how the president agonized because you are the most powerful person in the world but you cannot save your child. >> host: >> host: when and where did grace and coolidge die? >> guest: coolidge died in january of 1923. it wasn't a good time. he was wrong about history he felt but he looked forward. and grace much, much later, i believe it was the 50's or 60's. she was the first aerobic first lady. she would march with the special team and president coolidge would get jealous and fired one of them even. that was his worst behavior. he fired his secret service man in the dakotas because she came back a from a walk late. ms. coolidge tried to help the man -- he wasn't fired truly but transferred. she visited the girlfriend's tea house to help the economy because she felt bad her husband fired jim, i think was his name. that is the hot coolidge. there was a hot coolidge. you just didn't see it a lot. >> host: joseph, pittsburgh. good afternoon. >> caller: i wanted to ask you about the rating system. the standard day rating system. you have murdoch getting a large portion of the s&p. there is a vested interest, isn't it? >> guest: there is a lot of vested interest. we are making the cost of this public and the details private. the ratings agencies need competition. they don't need reinforcement. if an agency is failing and the agencies didn't predict the trouble there should be an opportunity for new agencies. >> host: amity shlaes, this e-mail from jerry in ann harbor. what do you think about money in politics? for example citizens united? >> guest: i don't have much to say about that. but coolidge was very careful and went through after having a washington office because he didn't want to take a lot of money. one reason he was able to become the vice presidential candidate is many of the candidates in '20 were discovered to have taken money from this or that interest group. >> host: why don't you want to say about it? >> guest: i don't know a lot about it:. >> host: is there anything coolidge should have done different? >> guest: a lot of people say coolidge caused a great depression. there is not a lot of evidence about that. but he could have supported fair trade. he would have had to move the whole party. he could have reduced tariffs. as the executive, he had the authority to fool around with them. he let it lie, though. he didn't like change or discretion a lot because that does its own damage. but he was a creature of his period. you cannot ask people to go outside his period so we didn't. i think that is the main one. >> host: andrew, logan utah. about ten minutes left in the program. >> caller: thank you for your work and educating the upcoming generations on economics. my question is related to the lost science of money and any parallels you see with economic philosophy of coolidge and what do you think of the work of steven? >> guest: thank you for that. i know logan utah. i don't know zurlanga. is he a hard money author? >> caller: in 2003, he spoke before the u.s. treasury. the book he has written exhaustive work on the bases of economics and how money is defined and used in the philosophy. the book again is the loss silence of money. >> guest: thank you. i say coolidge was a hard money man. in fact one of his -- guest >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: he was for the gold standard. in 1896 he was just coming out of college and one of his first debate was about the gold standard. and he was scared but he did it and he said i improved and began to understand this area because i was able to debate it. >> host: e-mail from joseph. calvin and ike were not as much a daily news item as the modern presidency has become. please have your guest comment on this. >> guest: ike had that because he was general in a terrible war. i find i work with ike people often. bruce coal is a great friend at the foundation and it is that uh-huh -- humility -- of someone who worked hard. >> host: mike is on the line. >> caller: i am hooked on this and going to buy the book tomorrow. you know this was a civil rights disaster during this presidency. for someone who appeared moral and would return money. what did he do for civil rights? black people? women? what about the workforce? >> guest: thank you for the question. very important question. what did he do for civil rights. more than his predecessor or some of his successors. women got the vote and he supported that. they voted in the 1920 election and one reason harding was the candidate was because he was handsome and that was supposed to affect the women. for the blacks, coolidge as a grown man was pretty admirable. you can see, for example, someone wrote him do you think a black man has a write to run for congress and he wrote back a letter i cannot believe you would even ask that question. and coolidge in the '20s, kkk was the main group and he gave a speech saying no more kkk in his second term out west. that is pretty tough. i don't see much evidence coolidge was racist. he didn't desegregrate areas but neither did anything else. he believed the federal government can fix everything but if the economy is better things will get better. and that happened with lynchings and the kkk declined in the course of the coolidge presidency especially in terms of membership in the clans. he wasn't a civil rights president but he wasn't the shape of the cities as you suggest -- shame -- >> host: i want to remind you this month we have chosen the "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" as our book club selection of the month. it came out in 2007 and the graphic novel just came out this year. if you go to our website you will see book club, click on that, and go in and make comments via our website about the book and we will be holding a conversation throughout the month and you can comment when you feel like it. but this will begin this afternoon. our book selection were the month of june "the russian gas matrix: how markets are driving change." phillip in fort mitchell, kentucky. >> caller: a question to you. what was the extend of facist thoughts on fdr's recovery program on the new deal? much is written about the communist but recognizing this thought didn't carry then the baggage it does now. >> guest: very important question. one should ask "what works" -- what was the extent of this where everyone thought fascism was awesome. and the question of civil right and that was regard wasn't focused on. it wouldn't be just fdr. but it did influence him. i draw a picture in the cartoon book of the new dealer going to italy and checking out the fascist farms and it influences them and influenced republicans as well. germany versus russia depends on who you hate more. >> host: from the "the greedy hand" and this is a quote that seems to carry through in your work or how you -- public choice theory, any other industry wants to survive and wants to compete, like a business in the market it will work hard to damage challengers and other parts of the government. >> guest: that is right. public choice theory is an odd name but an important philosophy. and george mason university, where it lives, has become a power house since i wrote that. james bucannon, the philosopher i learned from, is gone but his students have said government is another operator and now higher than the private sector. that is taught now. tyler cohen or pete becky the dean of this area teaching this. and now many young people are learning this interest relevant school of economics. >> host: again your next book? >> guest: "the silent majority: a history of post-war america" is my next book. >> host: when is it coming out? >> guest: soon! >> host: and this summer at the calvin coolidge foundation what can they find? >> guest: please come and judge the debaters we will train you. and come to the anniversary of the swearing in. home schoolers of new england and partners with dartmouth and kids are there all summer talking about economics and presidency. >> host: this has been in-depth on >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> booktv is live today from chicago, home of the 30th annual chicago tribune printers row lit fest. with a number of authors today, including paul taylor and danielle allen. first we're going to kick off our live coverage there the printers row lit fest with cal thomas. he's

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