Announcer 1 and you are watching live coverage of a symposium all day on Abraham Lincolns life, career, and legacy here on American History tv. It is being held at ford theater. The next speaker will be Douglas Wilson, who is the coeditor of herndon on lincoln. William herndon was lincolns law but law partner and biographer. After this will be a Speakers Panel featuring the presenters responding to questions from the audience and from one another. They had been indicating a fair amount of interest in each others books and writings as the day has gone on. We are live at ford theater in washington dc. [background chatter] i take great pleasure in introducing a longtime friend wilson. Eague, douglas he is the lawrence distinguished professor of english, not at knox of English College in galesburg, illinois. He currently codirects the lincoln study center at knox college along with his longtime colleague rodney davis. Rodney was stricken severely with parkinsons and is unable to be here. Is a two timeon winner of the prestigious lincoln book prize, which is awarded annually by the American Institute of history. As wilson first one this prize in 1999 when his book, honors with, and in 2007 lincolns sword. In the middle of his academic career, professor wilson served for four years as the founding director of the robert h. Smith in International Studies virginia. I recall with some nostalgia visiting with professor wilson and his wife, sharon, at the home they rented in near monticello, because it has the birdseye view of jeffersons original home. Following dr. Wilsons return to knox college after the tenure in charlottesville, he organized the lincoln studies center. And i interrupted that, the plan they had for a series of publications, because as serving as the curator for the library of congress where i have been two years, i was given a grant the library was given a grant, the promise of 1 million to digitize president lincolns president ial papers. And knowing the diligence with which both rod and professor wilson did their research and academic writings, i asked them if they would take on the project, digitizing newspapers. They did so, and i think it through them off course for about three years, but they were very racist about it and did a marvelous job. And gracious about it, and did a marvelous job. And someone wrote a book from australia using the digitized papers through the internet. Professor wilson is a laureate of the Lincoln Academy of illinois, which awarded him the order of lincoln, the states highest honor. He holds a number of honorary degrees from down college, knox college. Degrees fromed Lincoln Memorial university, the civil war roundtable of new york, the Lincoln Group of new york, and this organization, the Abraham Lincoln institute. I will spare you the recitation of his publications, which run on for four pages, and end by saying the Research Skills by which doug and rod demonstrated during their work in research at the library of congress was absolutely unsurpassed. With accuracy, with diligence, just tenacity. I was deeply impressed. We have been friends for a long time, and i take great pride in introducing the vessel or introducing professor douglas l. Wilson. [applause] Douglas Wilson thank you very much. Thank you, john. He behaved himself better this time. [laughter] Douglas Wilson he once introduced me to the library of congress, and he says, i have visited in dougs home. He lives in a Beautiful House in a shady street. He said, when we drove up there, i looked up at his wife, and she is up on a ladder painting the house. [laughter] Douglas Wilson i dont think that did me any good with the feminists. ,onger ago than i can remember i spent several years very happily studying and writing about thomas jefferson. When i was unexpectedly followed by the lincoln whale. Here is how it happened. I wanted to write something about the remarkable role reading played in jeffersons former said years formative years, looking for something that made a good comparison. The example of Abraham Lincoln made a special appeal because of the strike the sharp contrast of the hardscrabble life on the frontier with it less than a year of schooling and jimerson jeffersons privileged upbringing. He had tutors, went to boarding school and went to college. And aggressive readers, but lincoln lived in a place where there were very few books to be had while jefferson was said to have read all of the books in his Fathers Library of several dozen books by the time he was five. I already knew a lot about , so i was hoping to find material for an instructive comparison between the two future president s. I read my way through the microfilm of the massive archive on the life of Abraham Lincoln compiled by his law partner, william h. Herndon. This proved to be something of a transformative experience, for it caused me ultimately to virtually abandoned my work on jefferson and provided the impetus for forming an Editorial Partnership with my knox college avis, toe, rodney o. D publish and make accessible in scholarly editions what herndon called his lincoln record. We began this project almost 30 years ago, and so far we have published an edition of letters and interviews that herndon received from others about lincoln. This is called herndons informants. That laid the groundwork for the next one, and annotation of a famous biography, herndons lincoln. The latest volume in the series is the first of a twopart editorial work called herndon on lincoln. First volume, long in preparation, and devoted to his letters about his law partner, was finally published last year, which is the reason i was invited to speak here today. Work,cond volume of the herndons lectures and other writings about lincoln. It is reasonable to ask, if herndon wrote a biography of his law partner that has been called the most influential life of ,incoln ever rented written what could justify waiting through a substantial volume of his letters on the same subject . The answer, the answer to this question lies in the letters themselves. It was pointed out long ago by herndons most knowledgeable critic and biographer david dunn. Donald was the first scholar to make a thorough examination of the entire herndon archive. In addition to the abundant material that herndon collected in addition to the abundant material herndon collected from others, there is a substantial number of very valuable letters that herndon wrote to the young man who would become his wyke,borator, jesse w. Whose name is on the title page, the coauthor of her did lincoln. If you take the trouble to study the letters, the letters he collaborator, his it became clear he wrote very little of the text of his own biography, and that both the theof the book and design of the book and its firstperson narration is herndon speaking about lincoln. All of that was exclusively the work of jesse white. When the book was completed, wyke even proposed naming himself as the actual author of the book. Herndon, who usually let wyke have his own way, retorted if he the principal author, they would think the book was fiction and would not read it. Herndon was probably right about this, but he never protested or wyke hadd what written. Their papers leave no doubt that when herndon protested, he protested often in the later phase of the collaboration, wyke, who lived in another state, ignored the changes and corrections. In there many changes text of the biography that simply do not reflect herndons own knowledge or appeals for which wyke is responsible. Particularly glaring example that i have pointed out elsewhere is weik s treatment of lincolns fatalism. Declared in a number of letters the most important thing about lincoln, it is unrecognized by his admiring public was that lincoln was an embittered fatalist. One of the quotes given from leonard sweat by an earlier speaker makes that point, gives that point of view. Herndon believed and declared it a number of letters. S task,rast, weik following as it does the earlier work, dismisses lincolns gloomy forebodings as quote, the delusions of the fatalist. That is all he has to say on the subject. The upside of all of this is the way lincoln is represented in the biography and the way herndon represents him and the letters are decidedly different, which is why david donald wrote this caveat to understand herndons own peculiar approach to lincolns biography. One must go back to his letters. Difference . Isbegin with, the biography gracefully written and an agreeable read whereas herndons prose is plagued by verbal mannerisms, idiosyncrasies that are often both awkward and annoying. By contrast, bibliographys firstperson biographys firstperson narrative is nothing like herndons own voice and is like something you find in a vault novel rather than biography. Consider the way the book opens. After relating the difficulty of a campaign biographer, getting lincoln to talk about his early life, the narrator observed that is supposed to be herndon on the subject of his ancestry and origin, i only remembered one time when mr. Lincoln ever referred to it. I was about 1850 when he and were driving in his one worse buggy to the court horse buggy to the court in minard, illinois. The suit we were going to try was one in which we were likely directly or collaterally to touch upon the subject of hereditary traits. During the ride, he spoke for the first time in my hearing of his mother, dwelling on her characteristics and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he had inherited from her. He said among other things that she was the illegitimate child of lucy hayes, a well bred farmer or planter. He argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguish him from the other members and descendents of the hayes family. Was,ation, painless as it called up the regulation of his mother recollection of his mother. And as the buggy tilted over the road, he added ruefully, god bless my mother. All that i am or ever hope to be, i owe to her, and immediately collapsed into silence lapsed into silence. We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. He was sad and absorbed, burying himself in thought and using no doubt what disclosure he had just made, he drew around him a barrier which i feared to penetrate. His words and mullen told and melancholy tone made a deep impression on me. As we neared the town of petersburg, we were overtaken by an old man who rode beside us for a while and entertained us with reminiscences of days on the frontier. Lincoln was reminded of several indiana stories. By the time we reached the unpretentious courthouse in our destination, his sadness had passed away. Letters oniving lincoln that we were able to include in our volume, herndon tells of lincolns disclosure about his mothers illegitimacy, no less than a dozen times by my count. Two of these were in letters to weik, but he does not say in either of them when it happened or where or what the sinister what the circumstances were, or how lincoln was affected by this disclosure. This does not mean weik made up the story about the buggy ride to petersburg. In fact, one of her dead letters later contains some of the same elements used by weik, who may well have heard the same story and conversation from herndon. But the student of lincolns letters is enabled to see that the biographers way of telling the story is weiks not herndons, who has no gift for narrative. Herndons attempt to dramatize anecdotes are usually ineptly drawn out and result in tedium. Touch centersve the jolting of the buggy as lincoln speaks of his mother is completely foreign to him. And while he several times describes how lincoln pulled himself out of depressive moods stories,g nostalgic but timely appearance of the mounted traveler, who sets the scene for the return of lincolns. , is a narrative lincolns device. Is a narrative if you ask what is wrong with dramaticking herndons narrative, the answer is the devil is in the details. S description is wellcrafted, well paced, creates and affecting scene, and it does so without doing violence to the burden of herndons known testimony. So much to the good. But at the same time, it artfully fictionalize his some undocumented fictionalizes some undocumented minor details that makes the past see more credible but at the expense of being imaginary rather than accurate. If this were the only such case or one of a small handful, it would be scarcely worth noticing, but our close examination of weiks narrative show he repeatedly took liberties with herndons source materials. So pervasive is this practice that one eventually is forced to conclude it was part of his editorial method. He apparently thought it was a part of his charge to improve the narrative by making whatever changes to the biographical. Vidence he deemed appropriate for example, in addition to correcting the spelling and grammar of herndons informants, he frequently rewrote it by adding or subtracting words, phrases, and sentences. In our edition of herndons lincoln, where we attempted to verify the sources employed in the book and as a result, our annotations is quite extensive, it is in fact replete with alerts to the reader in passage after passage that the testimony or written source material had been materially changed and to what affect. Here is an example of one of the most telling interviews herndon ever recorded. Agedwas with lincolns stepmother, on the question of the fathers attitude toward his obsessive reading, there are accounts said his father did not like the fact lincoln was always reading, and in fact, lincolns cousin said his father would slash him if he did not stop reading. So this is what this passage is all about. Here is what herndon wrote down after the interview. Sarah bushs of lincoln. As a usual thing, mr. Lincoln never made quit reading to do anything if he could avoid it. He would do it first himself. Thomas lincoln, the father, could read a little and could scarcely write his name, so he wanted to see himself be useful. His boy abraham was encouraged to learn in all the ways he could. Weiks version of that testimony. I induced my husband to permit a to read and abe to read and study at home. At first he was not easily reconciled to it, but finally he too seems willing to encourage him to a circuit extent certain extent. Was a dutiful son, and we took care when he was reading up to disturb him, to let him read on and on till he quit of his own accord. Very different passages, both in form and in substance, and each conveys something very different from the other. Now admittedly, herndons interview notes are not often rendered in conventional sentences, as his method was to catch the essential words and might seem ten please often might seem to call for revisions. It is also true that he ended his letters to weik by saying, please, i wrote this in haste. Please edit and improve. This is what he has done throughout the biography. But the problem is he could not refrain from overreaching and making changes that alter meaning. In the case of what lincolns step motor stepmother told about the attention of lincoln and his father by the obsessive reading, weik not only consciously upgraded her diction , he changed the sense of her testimony. This kind of invisible revision of the testimony, of the witnesses, which is evident throughout the biography, as even extended to his quotations of lincolns writing. He had the good grace to improve lincolns writing. Inaccurate testimony is bad enough, but the inevitable results of such license is out white outright factual heresy. Here is one such casualty to weiks rewritten testimony that i have seen more than once, unknowingly repeated by otherwise knowledgeable lincoln scholars attempting to make a point about the gun lincolns development younger lincolns development. There was a letter to david turnham, to the second of which questioneplied, second , so far as his being accustomed to deep thoughtfulness and lost to reflection. He never was, but on the contrary was always quick witted and ready with an answer. Weiks enhanced version of this he shot up,s, as says turnham, he seemed to change in appearance of action. Although quick when it and ready with an answer, he began to exhibit deep thoughtfulness and was often lost in steady reflection. We could not help noticing a strange turn in his actions. Rather than providing a possible beginning point for lincolns which fabled melancholy, weiks reaction seems to do and scholars picked up on, the actual reply to turn his question is unambiguous evidence to the contrary. Herndon did not have his gift for fluid prose, neither did he share the style at the expense of substance. He was duly concerned about the accuracy of what he added to his archive, and when he himself copied copied passages. His investigation made him privy to an on told number of stories to his law partner, but he admitted that he was directive and did not bother to include stories he did not believe. Here is the indicative thing about herndon as an investigator. He candidly admitted more than thatto his correspondents his hilliard to write down what he was told at the time deprived him of the record of testimony he later realized was a significant. He told his collaborator for example, i did not many times see the importance imparted to me till long after it was told to me. Never saw the importance of many things until they rounded up as a whole. This dimension of his correspondence in which he admits his own limitations and that of the lincoln record has received little recognition. A long history of being regarded as the bogeyman of lincoln studies. One of the chief complaints made against him is that he is selfimportant and claims to know more about lincolns in her makeup and thinking than is reasonable to credit. This is a criticism that is often illustrated by one of his hyperbolic remarks to the effect that he knew lincoln so well he could tell what he was thinking. The readers of the letters will indeed find a few of these. But they will also discover that what he usually said in this regard, and that he is really quite the opposite. Lincoln was so secretive, shut mouthed, and close minded as to be impenetrable. He says this too often to doubt that this sentiment trumps any ill considered hyperbole he couldve been guilty of. He even admitted later in life, man had to guess at the after years of acquaintance. And then you must look long and keenly before you guessed or you would make an ass of yourself. A related criticism of herndon is that he was smugly confident. He could explain lincolns motivation and behavior. But this is also the depression that is not impression that does not survive the reading of his letters on the subject. Always anxious to gratify what he, um, what he perceived as is most discriminating correspondence. He nonetheless was willing to admit his in it equity an adequacys and frustrations to joseph fowler, a former senator he held in high regard, he frankly confessed later in life his misgivings about his own repeated attempts to satisfy his correspondence, the desire to fully understand the martyred president. Written such ag poor, uncorrected letters on such a subject as lincoln and his characteristics and the like. But you have been and there is no use to whine about it. What i have said to you ive tried to tell the truth as i understand it. Probably lincoln stands a mystery to me because i tried to penetrate the soul of a man, the essence, anything not to be penetrated a thing not to be penetrated by mortal man. I give you ideas to help you see all sides. My weakness, as well as lincolns greatness, nature and attributes. A good example of herndons failure in his attempts to penetrate the soul of a man is contained in a letter. He describes at a certain time in the afternoon, the sunlight streaming to the western windows of the office, and flooded could seeface, so i the back part of his eyes. When situated, i studied the man. And think that i could read his thoughts clearly. But, as he felt himself beginning to bask in the satisfaction of being able to read his secretive partners innermost thoughts, the man in question would without warning burst out in a large laugh and a spring downstairs as if the house were on fire, saying nothing. Here he clearly mocks himself for having the folly of thinking that he could fathom what was going on in his partners mind. Outsame passage he lays what he considered the proper way to go about thinking and behavior. You had to take some wellestablished fact of his nature, and then follow it by analysis, the purpose would lead you correctly if you know of his loss. This is ancognize, accurate statement of his own theory of behavior analysis. We should note it comes complete with a builtin caveat about the conditions that must be present to render effective. If you knew human nature, and its laws, here to my mind is one of herndons real vulnerabilities. It is not that he is deceptive or untruthful or disingenuous, but rather that he cannot resist speculation about lincoln that are based on very dubious assumptions about human nature. And its supposedly was laws. The letters show that weik frustrated several of herndons efforts to insert dubious theorizing of this sort. It is hard not to see him in this respect as yet another victim of the 19th century theories, the 19th century theories wrong page. 19th century theories that purport to find the liable explanations for thought and behavior in sheer physiology. Thus the reader of the letters must expect to find passages such as this. A lowincoln was of physical organization. Good digestion, slow circulation, slow functions, blood is not hot, not impulsive, cold flesh, liver had no action, sometimes feverish and sometimes cold, had it not as strong, but tenacious. Hadd have lived 100 years no haste, nowhere and care of cellular tissue, muscle warner. Or nerve. Such a Free Association of catalogues make regular appearances in the letters. While they are not without interest in a letter, one can hardly blame weik for actively working to keep this sort of thing out of their biography. Defense, he admitted such theories as these had not been validated by science. Hopinge fax, facts, to have a signs of physiology and psychology in the world. There is nothing lawless, neither matter or mind. I will do my part for the future by giving facts to the future. Science may unreal unriddle in the future all of lincoln. Nor is it too far removed from what happened with respect to one of his most revealing observations, a familiar phenomenon he described as lincolns double consciousness. In one moment he was in a state of obstruction, and abstraction, and then quickly he was social and communicative. He speculated that this phenomenon, may spring out of the double brain. One life in one hemisphere of the brain, the other life in the other. This was of course only an educated guess. But it reminds us that the left brain and right brain phenomenon in our own time does indeed have a physiological basis. Herndons ideas about lincoln changed over the years as he learned more about the Young Lincoln that he never knew. And as he came to terms with lincolns meteor emergence as a real as a renowned statesman, put off by the dailies deluge of illustrations of him as a saint. He tried not to suppress what he called necessary truths. Necessary truths about lincoln. In his letters, there is a prime source of what they were. He meant,sary truths anything that contributed to the future Residents Development president s development. Not excluding things that would ordinarily be considered unsuitable or inappropriate for conventional victorian biography. This determination made people nervous. Accounted at least in part for the reluctance of those former friends and associates to go on record for herndon. It marked the beginning of a pattern of mistrust and disapproval that hunted herndon s biographical enterprise, and it continues to the present day. It is too big a topic to cover right here, but i want to touch briefly on one aspect of the prevailing mistrust of herndon, and that is the issue of his motives. A few years before the biography was published, he began a thoughtful correspondence with truman bartlett, a boston sculptor that was deeply interested in lincoln. And his diplomatic question touched a nerve. Herndon replied, in one of your letters you asked this question, do you think lincoln wished to toknown thoroughly known, which i answer emphatically no. He was a hidden man and wished to keep his own secrets. This is late in his life. Earlier in his life he took the other tact. Lincoln would want me to tell these important things, even though they were not usually in conventional biographies. Recognized, the question why, why do you want to go against your partners wishes . It is a question that serious students have to ask. Ire is herndons reply as trail the man stepbystep, like a dog trails a fox, i find many new spots, holes, much to admire, and much to regret. It nearly kills me in my old age to persist in my search. In effect, he suggests he is driven to do it. Not expressly to learn either the good or the bad. For his relentless quest turns up both. But because this is what his life has come to be about. The serious students of lincoln have to ask, implicitly or otherwise, why did he persist in digging out the very things that his partner carefully kept hidden . Is this simply doing the biographers duty . Or the betrayal of his friends privacy . Or perhaps both. In 150 years in the study of lincoln, there have been many who have concluded that herndon, for whatever reason, must have been out to quietly or not so quietly to his credit lincolns character and undermine his reputation. I disagree with this, but it is certainly the case that herndon knew some of the things he was exposing woodwork to diminish his partner would work to diminish his partner in the eyes of many. I believe his basic motivation and goal was truth. And if his letter to bartlett is any indication, he paid a painful and unexpected price for it. Was the joint biography finally published in 1889, herndon was 72 years old. He was utterly impoverished, sickly, he was unable to pay bills, and he was eking out a precarious living by selling produce raised on his farm out of a handcart on the streets of springfield. Having sold off much of his farm, he was desperately counting on the proceeds of the biography. But the publisher declared bankruptcy before the authors could receive a penny in royalties. This was a crushing blow to herndon and his family, but his letters show the surprising resilience. Writing to horace white, helping to find a new publisher, he said, i expect a continue to continue gathering thoughts about lincoln as long as i live. And when i go hence, the reading world shall have my manuscripts unaltered, just as i took them down in writing. I think they will be of value to mankind sometime. I have been at this business since 1865. Every day i pick up some fact or facts that mesa just some other fact that may suggest some other fact, awakening a conscious state, as if. The time was just present as if the time was just present. The human mind is a curious thing. Here is seems clear that herndon recognized that his more than 25 years of diligently investigating and thinking about his law partner had become somehow ingrained, a persistent and perhaps indelible aspect of his mental life. And whatever should become of the compromised biography, the resulting archive of interviews, documents and correspondence he had accumulated in his lincoln record would survive to be of service to posterity. I would maintain that this wishful vision of his record is largely being realized, for it has become indispensable to those who study lincoln. His own writings about his great partner, not only the letters, but his lectures and unpublished memoranda constitute a much larger and more varied collection then has been realized and form an important extension of that record, as well as a corrected version to those deficiencies in the biography. His writings only lincoln will continue to be challenged. And some of his fondest theories will continue to cause readers to roll their eyes. But as to the durability of his contribution, the term that springs to mind is one that lincoln borrowed, once used in a nolans iption it means willingly or unwillingly. In the vernacular it translates as, like it or not. [laughter] [applause] thank you. Son [applause] Douglas Wilson i will be happy to take questions. Yes . Theack in 2010i read introduction to herndons informants and discovered that you had identified the granddaughter of weik living in greenwich village. I was able to contact her and talk to her on the phone and she said she never knew her grandfather. But her mother took her and the family back to live in the family house in greencastle, indiana where weik had been mayor and had gone to college. And that is where herndon had store,er to the familys the room above, in the hot summer where they were working on the menus get together. And the manuscript together. I thought it would share something that she told me that she had been told by an old resident of greencastle. Down tothat weik came what was a young boy and asked, uh, it was not jesse, it was herndon who had a reputation as a drinker. And who came down and asked this boy secretly, do not tell jesse, but give me a bucket of beer. And that gives some insight into the relationship between these two men, that perhaps is a little more favorable to weik. They did spend time together, working through that manuscript. The other thing i wanted to comment on, we would not have this record if weik had not kept it. And he did keep other people from looking at it. But if he was so worried about how he ended up with a record, that herndon the essentially gave to weik. Douglas wilson yeah. I appreciate that very much. Give meddaughter did some pages, she would not let me if ihe diary, but she said wanted to know about his record, she sent me scans of the pages that had that material in it. There is athat different side of the story and i do not mean to say that weik was a bad guy. He was not a good scholar, but he did not understand his role in the way that a scholar does. If you have a testimony, you do not change it to make a better. [laughter] Douglas Wilson or more attractive or interesting, you put it down the way it is. He did not understand that. Because, he didnt even to lincolns own writing. It is systematic of him. But, this gives me an opportunity to point out that oft month they spent, august 1887 in that very hot room above the store, no airconditioning, probably few windows, and a very hot august, which is why he probably needed the beer. Herndon was writing a series of monographs. His understanding of what they had agreed on as writing for the biography, and there are lists he made of these things, is that he would write a series of monographs on things that he knew about from firsthand, about lincoln. Lincoln asa lawyer, a politician, lincoln domestically, about his family life. And lincoln individually, which is the most, just talking about his personal characteristics. s job was to weik take those, those are the chapters of the biography, his job was to edit those and improve them. And then in between put some biographical facts, things that happen to lincoln in the 1840s. And then some crazy organization. And weik, we have pages where he , oneying to edit herndons of the chapters, and he cannot do it. There is too big a difference in what he sees as appropriate and what herndon says. And in the contest, you take his side. Herndon did not have a gift for narrative. He wanted the narrative and he invented a character named herndon who told the story in the first person, using the had hisat he got he papers with the originals, but weik prefer to use layman that quoted much of the biography. Only he was working on transgressions. So you can only tell that is what he is using. So the biography got utterly transformed. It does not mean that it is phony, it just means it is complicated. It is like every thing else paid you want to know more about it, and it gets more consultative. But i do not want to give the impression that i think weik was or that hen or did something wrong. I think he did what he thought he was supposed to do. Just like you said, they would not be any biography if it was not for weik. You cannot do it. You have been trying for 25 years and you have not gotten anywhere with it. Yes . Express why,n ever or wonder why lincoln kept him as a law partner for so long . Obviously Douglas Wilson people used to ask herndon that and the only answer i remember and i do not think there are too many of them are record, but he said, i do not know and neither does anybody else. [laughter] Douglas Wilson ok. Douglas wilson i think ok. Douglas wilson i think we can speculate, i am sure that he thought herndon in fact, lincoln is quoted, not in a solid source, as a saying i thought it was getting somebody who could keep the office organized, but i have discovered he is as organized as i am. Herndon was a student in the law office, and i think he probably thought he was young, energetic and very smart, ambitious, active guy. Politics are simpatico. I can understand it. It puzzled me. But there were many people that knew that lincoln had great potential, great talent. He was a presence in springfield already. And there were people that thaty were happy herndon somehow had managed to get it. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much. [applause]