Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Pasta 20170422

Dying city, dined with sinatra, spent five years in a federally funded gated community, and lived to tell the tale. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present mayor vincent buddy cianci. [applause] Vincent Cianci thank you very much, andrea. Thank you. Thank you all very much for coming. Andrea, you left an awful lot out of the introduction, ill tell you. Ive been introduced many different ways. Think about introductions, i remember being introduced one time, i used to be mayor and hen i stopped being mayor. Then i became mayor again. In 1990 i got reelected and ill never forget before the inauguration but after the election i was invited to go to a dinner i think at the biltmore hotel. A lot of people were there. Ill never forget walking in and the person at the podium was excited to see me there. And he got on the microphone and he said, oh, ladies and gentlemen, i want everyone to welcome the two timing mayor of the city of providence. Right . [laughter] Vincent Cianci i remember that one. Then i remember another time when another time when i was marry got a call from the white house. It was 1981 right after resident reagan had won. The call was about bill casey who was the head of the c. I. A. They said he was coming to Brown University and wanted to know if i could pick him up at the airport and if i could escort him through the city and take him to speak and drive him back to the airport. I said yeah. I knew who he was but never met him before. I dutifully got in the car. We used to have those big, long undertaking cars then. It looked like they were from the funeral home or someplace. We dutifully went to the airport. We put the car on the tarmac and we did that. About 10 minutes later the plane came in, a white plane with no numbers on it. Typical c. I. A. The plane landed and speaking about introductions, the gate came down or the steps came down, and this guy just had a skiing accident or something and was bill casey and he was on a crutch and he came down the stairs slowly. He got on the tarmac and he looked at me and he said, who are you . And i said, and youre supposed to be the head of the c. I. A. Another time in 1980 i was running for governor, the only election i ever lost. I had a party, a Birthday Party at my house. It was a fundraiser. Henry kissinger was in town. We made arrangements for him to come to the Birthday Party. He came and i was honored to have the secretary of state in my home on blackistone boulevard. He came in and i introduced him. He had a couple hundred people. A tent in the back yard and all that. I said, ladies and gentlemen, i am honored to introduce a great peace maker, unless of course you are a north vietnamese peasant, right . Id like to introduce a great peace maker, the whole thing, and i kept going on and on with these tremendous accolades. He got up to the microphone and he said in his own voice, no one could imitate him, he says, mayor, i dont know why you stopped. You were just getting in stride. You know . [laughter] and then there were other embarrassing introductions. We used to share, whoever the governor is, and ive been through a few of those, we would alternate the welcoming to the city of different conventions. Ill never forget, when i was 1979 k in maybe 1978 or about 9 30 at night, probably my last stop at the marriott hotel. We had these small convention thast would come in town like the basket weavers from idaho, anybody could come in and they didnt know who i was but part of the deal was the mayor would welcome them. That was one of the reasons i guess we had to throw in so theyd come. Ill never forget i walked into the marriott when it was smaller, about a hundred people, 150 people. I walked in and they had a head table up on the riser and i walked in. They had the table was all set with candles, wine, everything. When i put my foot up on the riser where the head table was the whole head table fell right down on the floor in front of me with all of the dishes and food and everything. So i went up to the microphone and i said, ladies and gentlemen they were all from idaho or someplace. Ladies and gentlemen, the mayor asked me to tell you hell be 15 minutes late. Those are some of the funny things that happened to me when i was mayor. Then not so funny things happened. But i remember when i first got elected back in 1974 it was a democratic primary that really the democrats were fighting and i was a republican. And that was not a good word in those days. Probably some people think its a not a good word now. I was a republican in those days. Eventually changed parties. There was a fight going on and i decided to run for office. And i did. And i would won. And there was, before that i was a prosecutor. I was assistant attorney general and we prosecuted the whole crowd that was running a lot of the criminal activity in the city at that time. Used to run with the state police and that was a lot of fun. Judge weisberg was the presiding judge in those days. Every so often we had to go secure the tapes. We had to go the Hospital Trust bank and then unlock the we had two keys for the safety deposit box. Just a little flavor there was two girlfriends of two book makers on the phone and they were talking. You know, my boyfriend says theas wires might be tapped. They may be listening to us and the other one says may boyfriend wont worry about it. I know exactly what to do if theyre listening. She said my boyfriend said when they come to see me im supposed to tell them that im taking fifth commandment which as, i thought, kind of humorous. Okay . Then there was you know, i look at the three different types. There were three different ones. The first time i was mayor it was kind of like being a social worker. We all know the story of the American City back in the 1950s and 19 the 60s and the roads were built and veterans came home and the federal government picked up every kind of mortgage. Who was left in the cities but elderly and increasing number of minorities . And the downtown was dying. The downtown was in tough shape. So we wanted to rebuild it. We used all kind of economic tools. First in those days we were going through voluntary desegregation. I dont know if you remember that or not but that was tough. And also what was tough was the fact that the city was dead. You could take a bowling ball and throw it down westminster street. You wouldnt hurt a soul. Even the Bible Society moved out of town. Thats tough when they want to sell their bibles somewhere else. And the first day that i was in office ill never forget getting a call from the Parks Department saying that the monkeys had escaped from the zoo. And that was the monkeys running around the 8th ward downtown. But they said what do you do when the monkeys escape . I said they never taught me that in mayor school. I have no idea. Do what you normally do. Then of course we built a whole network of social work systems with the Different Community centers we built whether the Da Vinci Center or federal hill house. And then on top of that, we also thought that we also, the next part of the mayoral team was being a risk taker. Risk takers, we decided to invest a lot of money nah the infrastructure of tearing the Railroad Tracks down. That wasnt original with me. They talked about tearing those Railroad Tracks down for years. Talking about a lot of years. We had tried to have the fortitude and get the political will by everybody to get it done and we did. We were tearing those tracks down and we realized it was on the money. Waterways and transportation and we could locate the three rivers. The providence and the other two. Of course my friend who was governor at wasnt governor at the time but game governor later, we kind f dedicated water place park, we kind of thought they were like like clot andns, and so we did that, we were kind of risktakers, and then the third part was being entrepreneurial because we decided to invest in the mall and the whole thing. Like a storks preservation as economic tools, and we used the Arts Community as a real tool also because we created the first Arts District in america that really, truly was an Arts District because artists do not have to pay taxes if they live in that district. They do not pay taxes on our income on anything they create. That was replicated all over the country later. Those were the kind of things we try to do, build skating rinks, but mostly the challenge was trying to bridge the gap between being a man for everybody, you know, and i will never forget the very first appointment i had know, providence is a nice place. High ceiling, fireplace, it is a gorgeous place. Even better after we restored it. But the fact is let me tell you something. In 1974, if i knew what it was really like to be mayor at that time, i probably would not have voted for myself because i did not know enough to be mayor in 1974. I was a prosecutor. I ran on all these wonderful promises, and i was going to be the most transparent, open mayor you could possibly find. It was a great office. The first appointment, i thought i was going to meet some philosopher or some great urban planner, and my first setintment was a big, heavy man from the seventh ward, silver lake. There is no water, no yacht district,s a tenement more or less. So he walked in, and the days of 1975, he walked in the office and he sat down, and i knew he was there i was naive, but not that naive to not know he was coming there to get something. So he sat down on the chair, and he said, can i help you . In the office was a little guy, and he a midget climbed up on the chair. You . , what can i do for he said, without me, you would not have carried the seventh ward. I said, probably not. Him . D, see barely in those days, you could. [laughter] it was not political correct in those days. He made a buck and a half a week, and i said to do what, and he said i dont care, make him an ink roller on your desk. Job, fasthim a forward 25 years, tweak five years later, i am sitting in the same office, and everyone expects me to be there, and the little person by this time, they have become a little person, climbs in the office, climbs on the same chair, legs, and he said, they are really screwing he said i know im getting my pension, i what my disability pension. That is why we hired you, because you are disabled. Why do you think you get a disability pension when you are not hurt on the job . It, it know if you got dont think you got it. But as time went on, we had a lot of fun. Parties by my definition are nothing more than a group of people organized for one purpose, they take over the government by nonviolent means. That is the political party. And i did not have the support of the city council on first ran, but i had enough to veto anything they wanted to do, so i try to use all the methods i had to try to go above that, to go above the fray, and i attended more events than you could possibly imagine to gain public support, because if you have money, doing bazooka marie doing , andasino and all that wonderful was the trip we had with gambling in the city. Roger stone represented one client at the time, and he came inand said i am interested the gaming community, and he that . I said who is wynn. E said stephen when he said a call anybody. So everyone says is that she is a wonderful man. Ok, fine, slime met with him, and he flew in a big plane, he came to my house, we had dinner, and he looked pretty good. This guy owns the mirage hotel in a list appeared as it turned out, we got along, and i said we need money, and i do not know if i am for gaming or against it. Why dont we do a poll . So that is what we did. Was not that thats i was maintained we would get any gambling business when we lost money, and is probably what we are doing now. [laughter] pollt anyway, we have the done, it looked good, and it came back a second time, and the spottedho ran the place us having dinner, and the next thing you know, it was in the providence journal, the mayor is for gambling, not for gambling as it turned out, i ended up be doing gambling, but before i did, i went down to see the native americans, made an appointment to see the tribal council. I said we cannot let this opportunity come by go by, so i met with them, 11 members of the tribal council, and i said if we build a casino in the city of providence, you guys are doing 800 million at that point 400 we will take 300, 300 million, 400 million from the appeared why dont you pay us not to build a casino iag . They looked at me, they looked much . They said, how maybe 50 million. A good investment for you to keep a casino out. 1 million a week which would be good. They said how long will we not have gambling in providence . I said take a Million Dollars and take up one of those ponies and we will be fine. They voted 65 not to do it. Imagine that they had voted the other way, we would have had 52 million a year all those years. Anyway without building a casino. It was not in the press for a while and then i was on imus, the radio show. One of the reporters in the journal picked up on it i got to be a celebrated kind of thing. But it was fun trying to do that. We almost did it. Then of course there were other interesting stories that came about in the city concerning the performing arts center. I tried to be a big supporter for the Arts Community, and ill never forget in 1977, maybe 1976, i got a call from some Business People in the city who said do you know mr. Dario . I had never met him. This guy named dario, his real name was and he owned the ocean state reader at the time which was and they said he wants to tear the place down. That would be terrible. Do you know him . I said i dont know him. Could you call them and make an appointment to convince them not to tear it down . I said why do you think i can do that . They said because you are italian. I said oh that is real sensitive, you know. [laughter] so i did call and i made an appointment and i went to see them in his house in lincoln. I will never forget going up in a dig carb and when i got out of the car these two german shepherds came lunging at me and i got back in the car. I said to the cop, why dont you ring the doorbell . What are you nuts, mayor . [laughter] he finally came out and he put the dogs down, they were healing. So i went in the house. He invited the dogs into the house. [laughter] so we started talking and we went out to dinner. I gave him the soliloquy is why he shouldnt tear the theater down. He said mayor do want to do me a favor . Give me a demolition permit. I said you would not tear the theater down. He looked at me and he said have you ever heard of the rko . I tore that went down. I said you mean business so i convinced him to come to my office on monday. His lawyer was and i said we can not put dario in the same room with bill miller and these people because they hated each other. So, he said okay, so he won over negotiated the deal the city ended up putting a lot of money at that we didnt know we were going to do that much at that time. We finally agreed. And dario was sitting in my office and i was entertaining him. Finally they all said yes. And then dario said to me after we agreed on the price of the deal is going to be done, dario said what about my other 40,000, speaking in broken english. I said what 40,000 . He said they promised me 1000 a day to negotiate and it has been 40 days. I picked up the phone and called miller. I never heard miller swear in my life except then. Forget about it, forget i even called. The deal is off. I will handle it. So i said dario that is why i can trust them to get the deal, the whole thing. I said what if i can give you some of it. He said what you mean . I will give you 20,000. He said how can he do that . I will make you the city consultant on the arts. I wanted to hire a racetrack owner to be the city consultant on the arts, right . He said you can do that . It said make it 25,000. Ok, 25,000. That is one of the recently got the performing arts theater down there today. Those are some of the stories you have probably never read about in the providence journal, but you can read about them in the book. One of the other funny things that happened was when we did the mall. The Providence Place mall. We have relocated the rivers and we need to be entrepreneurial. The whole thing about the mull depended on whether not we got nordstroms to be an anchor tenant there. They were a class a number one retailer in the country and all that stuff. The guy who owned him, who was the developer and eventually sold his interest, but the guy who wanted us to be very much involved with him was a guy named khan jill. He owned a lot of malls around the country. We had to go, myself and the governor, had to go to seattle , washington to meet with the Nordstrom Family. We walked into the Four Seasons Hotel i think it was and we register, and this desk clerk says governor, mayor cianci. Of course the governor felt like he was a world figure, that they knew him. The guy went back to get room keys and i said dont get all impressed. The kid probably went to johnson and wales. [laughter] so the kid came back and i said by the way where did you go to school . He said johnson and wales. [laughter] morning, we end up going to meet with the Nordstrom Family in their offices and we are sitting there in the governor goes first. He says well you know you must have heard we have some budget problems. But dont worry, we will be able to straighten that out and i will broaden the tax base. Im going to start taxing clothes and shoes. That is all nordstrom is clothes , and shoes, right . [laughter] so the nordstroms are looking at us, and they have their heads tilted like a st. Bernard, just confused. I kicked him under the table and i stopped him and i said doesnt our governor had a wonderful sense of humor . He knows how to get your attention. [laughter] and we ended up coming, we ended up coming back and then we had to go see, we had to meet with the developer at his headquarters. So, we went up to his headquarters and it was independence day. Not the fourth of july but may first, rhode island independence day. We flew up there and we went to this guys office. He had an office that was there was an Old Post Office that had palladium windows and if you press buttons, shades came down and screens came down to show us how rich he was with all the multiyear bill. We were putting money in and he was putting money in. We would have to make sure we were doing the Due Diligence thing. He shows us his tremendous operation and meanwhile during the meeting there a couple of kids coming in and out. They are like 25 or 26 years old, 28 years old and they are apparently the developers kids. The presentation stops and someone wants to ask questions. I have to ask questions. He says you know, he said you have a wonderful operation and you are like the oneman show here. I see you have a lot of people working for you but you are the boss. You are one person, and it all depends on you, and i see you have a couple of kids coming in and out. I have kids of my own, only at that time bruce didnt know how many he really had at that point. [laughter] so he says i have got kids of my own. I know how that works. He looks at him and he says, what happens if you died . This guy without skipping a beat looks and he says governor, we practice dying here once amonth. [laughter] that was pretty good. Then he asked me, any questions, mayor . He said yeah i like your daughter. How do i meet her and take her to lunch . That is my duty diligence. Anyway we ended up getting nordstroms and the rest of history, and it has been a great project for the city of providence. The other thing i guess i could talk about is the other things you read about in the book is the garbage strike at the 1981 i guess. I guess i had the city had some fiscal problems and so we had to reduce expenditures. One of the ways we could reduce expenditures the rule is if you are going to raise taxes you better cut i twice as much as the revenue you are going to get out o. If you are going to raise taxes, you had better cut two bucks out of the budget. That is what we try to do. And when we did that, it required us to get rid of a person on the garbage truck. Here is the point. They had four men on a garbage truck. You could put two men on a spaceship and send it to the moon. Why do you need four men on a garbage truck . We reduced it down to three, and they started throwing garbage all over the place. After three or four days, i went down to the public works Works Department and invited them over and had people take pictures of them throwing the garbage. So, what happened was they finally said give us our jobs back and we will clean it all up. I did and put them on probation. Then i went to the sewer Treatment Plant where they had a 60day guaranteed overtime. I took that away. Those guys went on strike and the other guys from the Garbage Department join their brothers and sisters so i had to fire them. We got a private company to we did put a fourth man on the garbage truck. It was a cop with a shotgun to keep them away. That lasted for a good long period of time but i became an expert this was before air traffic comptrollers and for some crazy reason all he did was fire some garbagemen and we had a private company. I got invited to Windsor Castle to speak to the British Government about privatization. I didnt know anything about privatization. I just fired some garbageman. So i went there and i ended up spending a week and i stayed and at Saint Georges chapel. Oh it was great, and i came back of course and i had to run for reelection and i had to get the union endorsement. [laughter] i did end up getting it and i got it because of an interesting i walked into, i walked into the Union Meeting there. There was a big crowd. I got this polite applause. I knew they werent going to endorse me. What happened was i was coming out of the meeting and that morning there was the longest strike ever. I always had to send policemen to get pickets for the bank. Hospital trust bank had a lot of the same members of the board of directors that were on the same board as brownish up. They had interlocking directorates, and so the union was trying to get people to take money out of the hospital bank. So the horses were there i love the horses. You never saw anybody feed a police car. They would always pet the horses. They dont use gas, they dont belong to any unions, they dont talk back to you. I told the lawyer, you guys are crazy, trying to get people not to put money in the bank. That is not how to do it. If you want to move some real thursdayhave a meeting night, you guys have 300 million to move. Administer the Pension System. You are on the board, i am on the board, i will just go bowling that night. I came back and said, you know what, thursday night, we are going to endorse you friday morning. I said no, it does not work like that. Tonight. Dorse me the journal could never figure out why they endorsed me after the garbage strike. After i put shotguns on them. But it was a great return. We were going to move it anyway. Anyway, the book takes me on a journey from providence to a lot of interesting places. The next part of the book talks about what happened during the a lot of it has to do with redevelopment of the city. I got indicted on 26 charges and found guilty on one of them, commitas conspiracy to rico. I was not found guilty of the rico. It was a conspiracy to commit a crime i was found not guilty of. I took an appeal. There was a great dissenting opinion it was 21. , i will always maintain my innocence. I never took a dime from any developer or anything like that and caught up in a whole situation. By the way, in the politics today, in the city of philadelphia, when you have 9,000 people working for you you will find people who are doing things and you will never stop that, because it is human nature. I can tell you, when i went to prison, they were a lot of funny stories there too. Anticipating going to prison is a big thing. Getting there is bad too. You cannot take the time you , cant keep saying what would i be doing if i was out . You cant think that way. You have to think positive. Live in the environment in which you are living. If you are older you get along better than if you are younger. In addition to that i used to love to i worked in the kitchen for the First Six Months because i was very visible and i was a high profile guy. They wanted me doing work. It was kind of like a change in life. Let me tell you. Some of it was pleasant. I read 400 books when i was in prison. I worked in the library the last four years i was there. A lot of funny stories. A lot of people belong in prison who are there and a lot of people who dont belong and a lot of people who should be there longer than what they are sentenced. When you watch television you , dont watch television by turning the volume up. Everyone has a radio and you put it on the frequency of the television. Everybody has it or phones. And you can tell how long a guy has been there by how big his earphones are. If he had little earphones he doesnt have enough money in his account for the big earphones. And if he has big earphones he has been there a while. So they sit there. One day i liked to watch the young kids and everybody. The minority kids, the white kids, everybody. And they sit and they watch bet. I am sitting there and the guy says, he just got sentenced for 20 years. If that were me i would jump off that building. I said what would you do that for . I couldnt stand it. I said, you could. If you want to kill yourself there are easier ways than jumping off a building. I said, it is easy. Go into the tv room saturday morning when they are watching, there is no sound at all, go and change the channel to the golf match. You know . [laughter] they will kill you. Right . At any rate, a lot of interesting things. I came home and decided to do radio and television. The book tour is going well. Every night we have had big crowds and big signing parties. It is doing well. I enjoyed writing the book. A lot of interesting and funny things. Running the city, i have got to tell you, there are also some nice stories about president ford who i got friendly with when i won the election of 74 and i was asked to meet him. And i did. And then in he asked me to run 1976, for u. S. Senate and wanted to but decided not to. And john chafee ran. Theres a story in a book about that. The whole issue. Daysohn chafee in those was not the same as we know today. He lost the governorship and the senator ship, and he had the misfortune of being secretary of the navy in rhode island when they closed all the bases. At that time, i was man of the year and all that stuff. I could have had the nomination very easily. But after the 1980 election a funny story. I had gone out to meet with Ronald Reagan in california. When i met with him the fellow who took me was john sears, his campaign guy. They got rid of him after the iowa caucuses. But reagan was sitting there with mike deaver in a wilshire Boulevard Office and Ronald Reagan looked old, older than when he became president. But he was sitting there and i will never forget, because he was a conservative kind of guy and i wasnt. We were talking and he said what you see is what you get. You know, and then i went left and i said to john, what happens if a guy like me wins or loses . What can i expect . He said you could get this or that, ambassadorship, so i lost the election. I went down in january to see him. I went to see the guy i walked in his office, director of political operations. I said, i am in the right place. You dont go to those meetings without an agenda. So he said to me, why do you want to be an ambassador . I looked at him and i said, because i want to learn a second language. [laughter] so go upstairs, this lady was well dressed and she pulled a map down. She said everything that is , green is available and everything that is red is not available and anything else is taken. So i said costar rica sounds good. And so i went down to coast arica and came back. Did not like that. Then i went to the dominican republic, came back and theres a chapter, a part of the book, where they wanted 100,000. That is when i went independent. I never thought i would win the next election but i did. That was 1982. The book is about 370 pages or so. I think you will find it funny and fascinating. It is not an autobiography. I was born on this day and went to this place or that place. I talk a little bit about my young life and a little bit about being in the army and a little bit about the Attorney Generals Department and Brown University. Interacting with the different president s of brown. And also running for office. I think if you are not province you will like it, but even if you wont know the characters. But you will be introduced to people you never thought existed. People say what is the best , thing you ever did for providence . Building a skating rink or the zoo or all that stuff. What it is is in 1974 the selfesteem of the city of providence was really low. And i think one of the most important things that my administration did was bring the selfesteem of the people of the city of providence up to levels they never thought they could achieve. And those people, they really felt the city had come alive with the arts. We have great restaurants. We have great restaurants because the city supported them. And loaned them the money. I dont care what restaurant is go to bills tavern, all those person a the last banker wants to see is a restaurant for restaurant owner, so we loaned them 1 or sometimes 0 because they occupied buildings, we got part of the sales tax eventually. People got jobs. Those are the things. Five things, if you do not get off the ball, five things to be the mayor. Number the city has to be safe. One, people have to feel safe. Number you have to have a good two, School System. I dont think we have achieved that yet. Under my administration or anybody elses. But it is getting better. Number you have got to provide three, an Affordable House for somebody. And number you have to have a four, job for somebody. And number you have to have a five, great recreational and cultural opportunities so people really and truly love the city. Trinity saved us three times. Remember adrian hall who was in my office . I need 1 million until monday. What do you need that for . He said the Ford Foundation gave , me money and i wasnt supposed to spend it. I said, what did you spend it on . He said, shows. I was supposed to build an endowment. Can i borrow the money . No. We will end up not going to the next place if i do that. But he was funny. Friendly was always in trouble financially. So italys tried as a so we always tried, as a matter of fact i will tell you one of the , things that you enjoy with trinity one of the reasons you , enjoy it is the old fleet senate, which is bank of america it was an interesting story. , the corporation wanted to build a building in the city and i tried to get them into the old shepherds building. He said, no. I want to build one next to the hotel. On that land. I said okay. Now, when we read in the hotel we would do a deal that we would lease the land. 5,000 a year for the conglomerate. In case they ever wanted to expand the hotel. So i called bill ledbetter, the interim head, and i said are you going to use that land for a few years . He said, we are not going to expand it. I said really . Maybe nortek would like it. Oh, i will meet with them. So set up a meeting next saturday or monday and never showed up. So finally i called and said how , come you never showed up . We have a moral obligation. I said to do what . To sell it to our law form. Firm. I said you are not the Redevelopment Agency for the city. When that didnt happen, looked across at the parking lot, and said, we have a tenant and fleet bank wanted to build a building tenant, did not have a so we married together those three people. But we ended up getting a grand where you get urban Development Action grants. Dear local government recipient, did not even know what they were for. Millions. Those were the days when government spent a lot of money. We replied to the grant and got it. It meant we could get the money as a grant, we never had to pay it back, but we could loan the money out. If the building could be built, what stopped it being built unless we got the money we could loan to them was they needed to , build a garage. And that garage was built by the money we got from washington and kept and that we loaned to the conglomerate that built the building which was urbane and nortek and fleet bank at the time. Interest rates were 18 in those days. 16 , if you remember. We loaned it to them for zero interest for couple years and paid backeventually it would have to be washed through the economy twice before the city could take it. So it was loaned out to crooks in america. And then that was, when i came back in office and i said crooks in america should have this should not have this money. It should be somewhere else. You have plenty of money. You dont need city money. I was going to put it back in the budget but trinity came to see me. It was a couple Million Dollars. They said we will replenish , trinitys endowment. That is how trinity got its endowment, from the building of the building of the garage at fleetcenter. That is how that happened. So many other things happen with financing. For instance, the landing was the first time financing was ever used where you take all the money you get from taxes dedicate it to a bond or borrowing money so that you can fix a certain area. Money does not go into the general fund. All that money, were the boardwalk is, that was done with tax incremental financing as was Providence Place mall. I believe in branding in the city. When we put the 8 million in to the performing arts center, we changed, we went to the meeting and we said, you keep calling as the oceans state theater but it has nothing to do with it. So i said you have to change the name of the theater before you get more money. And they said what do you want , it changed to . Anything with providence on it. That is how it became providence performing arts center. And they cannot change the name of the theater. If they do, they have to give all that money back. So you will never see that change. [laughter] vincent that is why we brought, you know, even horses in the city, gondolas, all those things are branded items. And it makes the city, moved to providence, we said you have to collect the providence ballet. The hockey team, we brought a hockey team here with the boston bruins. They said, no providence, no bruins. They wanted to call it providence jewelers. I could see the headline. Jews lose. [laughter] vincent you know. I said, we are not going to do that. We waited almost didnt have that. It was 5 00 that night that we ended up signing that deal because we were going to cancel , the press conference and not do it. Lucky they did it because the National Hockey league went on strike the next year and the only place to do hockey was with the american hockey league. With us. Those were interesting that happened when i was the mayor. The other thing i could talk about is other funny things that happened. But i will tell you, i have been talking too long. I understand i am supposed to take some questions. People might ask what is the , best quality . I get that every night for the past week. We have a signing party in washington and one in new york next week, the book has been doing well by the way. I always like to end the story ask must, when they who did you read in prison a lot of stuff about winston churchill. There was a lot of perseverance. I always like saying, you have got to be persevering no matter , how many times they get done. You cant look at your shoes all the time and i would think the windshield is much brighter in amanda much brighter than the Rearview Mirror in many ways. Winston churchill once said he did say but it was reported that after world war ii there was an option to give a big speech about how he won world war ii. He walked in the hall and sat on the platform and they introduced him to thunderous applause and he gives a speech about how he won world war ii. He walked up, took his hat off he put his umbrella to the side , of the podium. Took the cigar out of his mouth. He looked at the audience and said never, never give up. He put his hat on and put his stogie in his mouth and took the umbrella, sat down and had a great deal of a pause, i tried to live like that. I hope you enjoy the book. [applause] vincent does anybody want to ask a question or two . I understand that is part of the routine. Yes . Sorry. I have to stand up. We moved here from california a year ago and we just walk. We love providence, but our son is in kindergarten and we are going to move because of this goal. It is sad. Vincent there are some good schools in the city of providence. You have got to understand theres a big challenge in the epic with education today. I was thinking the other day, the population i remember i closed nine schools in one year peep. Body made a peek nobody said anything. The population was different. And now it is different. It is shifting. 90 languages in the Providence School system. That is the same as those at adjacent to us. There are improvements going on. I like to think positively. A lot of teachers experience the magic of the classroom. Classical is the Top High School in the state including private school, according to the latest numbers with admissions and all that stuff. But there are some spotty performances by some of the elementary schools. On my radio show, people call and say how can my kids learn because the teacher does not even speak english . That is a real problem. I am not the mayor. Havent been there for nine years. And when i was mayor, we had similar problems. The same problems. It is just, you have such a deficit in the city of millionce today, 180 for the structural deficit. How that happened, there is a big investigation going on now. How it happened was that the internal auditor, this relates to schools, the internal auditor was screaming down there for six months. Can you imagine . The internal auditor last year had to get a freedom of information act request to get money, to get the accounts and had to go to court. He is the auditor. And then when the independent auditor, those audits are done by august. The fiscal year those audits are done by august 20th or 30th. Something like that. The independent auditor was not allowed in city hall until after the last election. So we knew that something was happening. When i left office, the reserve fund, there was 19. 3 million and there was an operating service. Now they sold the civic center and added 22 million to that number. So they had 47 million in just a stash. And i guess, when the economy hit they didnt make the cuts they should have made. Like other cities did. They didnt do it. They kept everything. They actually gave raises. I cannot believe it. They gave 2 , retroactive raises last june to personnel. I couldnt believe that. That is what is happening. I cannot where do you live . That is the big thing. You live right here . Right across the street. Vincent east side schools, this Nathan Bishop was redone. That is a heck of a school. I would not give up on the Providence Schools. You see a lot in the newspaper. They are working on race to the top. The big thing is teacher evaluation. The mayor fired 1934 teachers. He did not really fire them. You are supposed to tell teachers if youre going to lay them off because you dont know how many you will have next year because you dont know what the demographic is going to be or the class size or if there is a Union Contract or whatever. So they have to let them know theyre going to be laid off and the union wanted that way. The mayor changed it. Some people say to his credit he fired 1934 teachers and at the same time the new superintendent , not so new anymore, but the superintendent and head of the union have this great collaboration going. They were in denver and they were cited by the secretary of education of being a great example of education. They came back from denver. It was march 1. I do not think they got off the airplane and the firing notices go out. You cant find a superintendent to comment on this. He is in the witness protection program. [laughter] vincent and so, the reason they are doing it is when they bring people back they dont bring teachers back at the high steps, because the new role is, you do not need to bring teachers back on seniority alone. You can bring them back on competency, they are interviewed, it is criteria based. Some people say it is good. They will bring back young kids. How do you attract young kids to be teachers in the School System . Bring them back and say we are going to fire you and then we will rehire you may be. I mean, that is not good job security. I think theyre working it out. I think that the commissioner of education, the new one, i think that she is a spark plug. I think she will be doing well. I do not know if they will keep her. Doesnt look like he is agreeing with what she does. She has to been to him spend bend to him. It is the whole political thing. Is there a big problem . Vincent i dont like to look at them as a problem but as a challenge. I think they were on the right track. I really believe it. Steve smith who is head of the , Teachers Union was on the , collaboration track. It all revolves around how do you evaluate teachers . The union says i didnt hire , these people, you did. If they do not speak english, you hired them and i have to defend them. So i think you will find certain schools in providence that are not performing well, but you will find some are performing well. I would where would you move to . Barrington . East greenwich . That is a nice place. There is no quitter clatter of there is no clatter of high heels on the sidewalk down there. No italian restaurants. [laughter] vincent i understand where youre going. I know it well. My grandkids go to public schools. They are classical. Theyre very well satisfied. Anybody else . Yes, sir . I came back to providence about the time you started your second administration. Vincent 91. I remember you on the Radio Program explaining how two of providences big problems were the huge proportion of property taxexemptent or charities and hospitals. And the other problem was unfunded pension liabilities, those not currently funded. So what happened . That was when you were starting. What has happened since . Vincent i will answer the first question about institutions. Taxexempt institutions have been part of the vibrancy of the city of providence. Brown university, you would not have the health care that we have now if it was not for that university and medical school and all the industries that surround it. Miriam hospital and all that. Think of the schools we have. Providence college. I like to call her our lady of the hoop. Havent been doing that well but providence college, johnson and wales the personal part of the largest population of students, johnson and wales, where will you find a better designed school than that . Nowhere in the country. The top one or two. What can i say about brown . We know what that is. It is a great place with great cultural dimension for the city. And when i was mayor we put in called pendulum taxes. It met, if it were not for the fact that these institutions were in the city, if they were not in the city the state of rhode island when not get the benefit of the income tax, the professors pay, the doctors pay, and the sales tax that they spend. So that is for the benefit of the state. So we devised a formula so that the state would reimburse us on are proportion of what those taxes were so we can provide the fire apparatus, 15 engine companies, ladder companies, special hazards, they do not pay a dime for that so we do get reimbursed for that. The other thing is we have to pick up the garbage and all those things. And so we did a payment in lieu of taxes. In addition to that, we also created the province plan which all the universities were part of. The providence plan, you have heard of that. The reason it got funded, and brown never liked to pay the city directly, because they did not trust us with the money. But gregorian always said i will give you money for a library, but we do not own the library. We fund a library. It is private. He would say theres a photo opportunity. I am sending 50,000 for the library. So i wrote back, they dont have in the library i cant take a picture with. So anyway we funded this, the whole providence plan with the manchester street plant. You know the power plant down here, the Electric Company that is across from the hot club . Maybe you know that. Ok. In 1991, they came here and wanted to redo the whole plan. Plant. They came to see us and they wanted to expand, wondering what their taxes were going to be. And they told us what they thought they were going to pay. And i said, i do not think that is the right number. So they paid us a lot of money. Every year. And we had separate appraisals to tell us what that was worth. The reason we were able to do Community Police stations and rehabilitation of housing, do all kinds of things to preserve Historic Buildings is because we took that money every year. 8 million a year. And we used that. We did not put the money into the general fund. We used that to finance of the providence plan, the cleanup of and also all that was done up by westminster landing. All with the providence plan money. Used we hade a private board of directors, that is how that money was spent. Nonprofits are very important to the city. The only people who got money to invest in the city are the nonprofits, rhode island , thetal, Brown University knowledge district. I hate that money. It makes it sound like i live in the stupid district. [laughter] created that land when we created route 95. The whole intent was to capture it and rebuild in an area where we could create a new industry, brown medical school, all that. They are the only ones with money and so, take a look at the schools and cities in europe, they are scattered all over the place. Downtown, you have a challenge down there, 1. 5 million square feet of office space in the city and you see the big superman building, that lease is up. They have sold it. And that lease is going to be up, who knows, in another year or so . If i were mayor, i would get on a plane and go right down to see the guy with bank of america who by the way used to work in providence. He is the chairman. And the other guy is the president. And the chairman used to be the dean of Brown University. I would get on a plane and go right down there and i would bring jack reeves on the banking committee. I would put them on the plane and bring him down and let him sit there. Not say word, just let them sit there. See what is going to happen with that building because when that thing empties out what you have left . 1. 5 million square feet. It is more than the economy because they did not Pay Attention to preserving those assets down there. They did not Pay Attention to that in the last 810 years. I paid attention. They didnt Pay Attention. They think it just happened. It does not. You have to nurse it and cut lip cuddle it and make sure you Pay Attention. And frankly, it went to hell. The rest of, the other question on pensions so respect those institutions. A lot of people say, iran and i ran one year and my opponent had an ad on television. Do you know that Brown University pays more taxes than Brown University does . Look at the record and that really is not true. All this stuff, all the people who work there and the economy they create you have to take a , look at that. And i think you can see it my way. And i am not saying it shouldnt continue. Over the course of 10 years, we could have got more maybe over the course of the years but i think they have an obligation. Rather than force them i think you have to sit down at the table and negotiate with them and i think you will find them cooperative. I always did. The second part about pensions. People used to work with the city of providence and other municipalities around the country because they didnt pay much money but they had good benefits. When the Pension System was put in, dont forget policemen and , firemen dont get social security. Do not forget that. They dont get that. They get only their pension. The Pension System is abused by when the retirement board was made up of people and it still is, people elected by unions. They run the board. When i came back into office in 1990 i will never forget going to the retirement Board Meeting because the mayor sits on it. And i saw all these people in audience and i do not know what they were doing there. I said who are these people . There was a woman in the front. That was the firemen, he brought this girl back, she is the new bond consultant. Really . Who is this one . There was no organized attempt to put an Investment Strategy together. They had a Football Player who was their advisor. And they control who gets on, who gets pensions. Firefighters i love them to , death but everyone would get a disability pension. Every single one of them, because if they get a disability pension they do not pay any taxes on it. And they get 66. If they get hurt in the job after three years they get 66 and twothirds of their pay and pay no taxes on it plus blue cross. Ok. Now the money was the same people who were given the giving the benefits i approve , you for disability and all the stuff. They also control the money. I said this has got to stop. ,it is in the book, i think. So i ended up going to court and all the way to the supreme court. And we said, these guys cannot control this. This has to go to the board of investment commissioners which is a nondescript board in the city that used to invest money that was left from Harvard University or some trust that we had. And there was little money and in it. But i said these are the people , who are supposed to do it. They were people appointed by the mayor so i had good people. , a lot of good people around that were on the board that were there who had really nothing to do with it. And there was hardly any money in there. We went to court and got the money shifted. I will never forget when the head of the union called me because they had abused the system. They would give the bond work to their friends and there was no Investment Strategy and no Asset Allocation and such. Because there is such a cash drain on that system, they were semiguide 8. 5 return. Then you did. So what you could do is you could invest it and obviously take whatever you had that you needed out of it to pay the pension and widows and all that kind of stuff and you would get a decent return if we had the right investments. So i went to court and won and i will never forget the head of the fire union called me that night. Because we took control of the money. Oh mayor, the new board you have got, he said, you know you could appoint some citizens. I said i know that. Outside the city hall. I said i know that. , he said can we recommend somebody . I said no, lets look at it like this. We just got a divorce in the Pension System as our little baby and i have custody of him right now. [laughter] vincent and the judge doesnt want you anywhere near that little baby, right . So he says well little teddy, in , six months can i call you and maybe we will reconsider . So he called me about six months later and said, can you appoint one of ours to the board . Said, every time i talk to little teddy he gets all, psychiatry says he goes crazy. [laughter] vincent he goes into shakes when he hears your name. So, that is in the book. So, that was the head of the union. We got along, but another thing , in 1991 they got a 6 i guess compounded cola. I took them to court and we hired joe kavanagh. That same retirement board i talked about, they thought they had plenary powers to give themselves any kind of cola increase, cost of living. They gave themselves 6 col. You are nuts. I signed is reducing it to three and then we went to court because they can send decree was because the decree was wrong. We went to court and we had a change so no one gets those colas after 1991. Anybody who was hired after 1991 doesnt get the 3 cola. Those people have retired now, 20 years but i remember that. I once so anybody, you know, there is a lot of myth. John kennedy was giving a speech at yale and im paraphrasing, he said, you know, the lies i can handle because i can refute them but the myth goes on. So that is what you have got to destroy, that myth if you can. One of the reasons i wrote the book. Some the 1991, we won that case and there is no compounded colas for anybody after 1991. And, on the nonprofit, i think nonprofits, i am not saying they shouldnt pay something. They should and they do. But i think you need to look and take a hard look at what they contributed the city before you go after them. Yes, sir. What would you like to see done with the property . Vincent open government is involving the public in the planning process and basically that should really have an economic value to the city of providence. They should have a tremendous public openness to it where it should, the public should have access to the waterfront and all that. That is a wonderful piece of property and it has deteriorated. That had to be used as a staging 195. When we relocated and we had to pay it back. That was to be sold and paid back to the federal government with the money we got to sell it. But thank god there was a bond issue that the people put together so that we could have the state bond it and pay the money to the federal government and keep it for the city of providence. So that is what happened. I had a great waterfront plan for down there, called the three cities. We got denied the waterfront by the industrialists and the people over the years. And you know, we should recapture that whole waterfront. If i hadnt had the problem i had, that was going to be the next effort. Write down allens avenue. I thought that brown could use that as a campus is what i thought could be there. I thought that would be great. The water taxi would take you right over to the east side and i thought it would be terrific. We proposed that. And other parts of downtown downtown was a real problem. ,i am talking down city part, where all the buildings are that are deserted. That is where the mayor is going to fill those buildings with tax incentives or whatever, because no one is going to go there. Anybody else . Yes, maam. What advice would you give to the current mayor . Has anybody approach you for your advice, first of all, being where you are . Him advicecould give what would you say to him . Gets three envelopes. You know that story . [laughter] vincent actually he has got , some good people around him and i think he has got to learn error. Trial and and learn that you cant, you see when you surprise people like labor unions they arent going to be with you. Not that you want them with you but you dont want them against , you. And i think he has to assess the financial. There are two problems, financial because that is where everything flows from. And our tax capacity our tax , effort far exceeds their tax capacity. That is the problem. And as a result of that you cant raise taxes so you have to do cuts. And when you do cuts it is , hurtful. Nobody wants to cut personnel and jobs and all that. But you take when you have directors of protocol on the payroll, you know what im saying . That is a little much and he doesnt have that the last administration. Had directors a protocol. I was not an angel but the fact is i never spent 600,000 on chauffeurs, that is a lot of money. And so i think you have to do cuts number one and assessment of vision. How can i put this . All vision vision without action is a danger. Is a daydream. And action without vision is a nightmare. And i think that is what we have had for the past few years, action without a lot of vision and it has become a nightmare. Good judgment, good judgment comes from experience but , remember all the experience comes from bad judgment. I think we have had some of that too. What has been the bad judgment . The bad judgment was not making cuts when it was necessary to make cuts. You have to. You could take 10 . If i were mayor, if i was planning on running again, you could take 10 out of that budget in the afternoon and he would not feel the difference, if you really wanted to take it out. That is about 60 million 70 million that you could take out of there. And also, you have to restructure the pension. I do not want to scare you, but the Pension System in providence right now has 880 million unfunded liability. They make you separate now the health of it because it has to be separate. 1. 2 billion. So, i dont know how you dig out of that. And it happened. I will give you an example. When i left the office and im not campaigning, but when i left the office there was 660 million in the pension fund. Less than 220 million in it now, 230 million. So it drained 400 million in a few years. And the other thing you can do is to get rid of the unfunded liabilities, but that is chasing good money after bad money. There was a time you could do it when Deutsche Bank was going to do it with us. You would borrow the money, collect what you had, borrow it and over the course of 15 years pay it back. You would have no unfunded liability, but i tried to do that and they were against it in the state assembly. And he was against it, he was an assemblyman. To do the same thing and they wouldnt let him do it either. Anyway, that is where we were at. Listen, we had a lot of good times. We have a great city and great artistic adventures here and great universities and colleges. We will rebound. It is just financial and it is also the fact we have an unemployment situation here that is terrible. We have foreclosures, terrible things like that, but we have a great city. And im proud of it and im proud of a lot of things in the city. All cities are going through this, a lot of them are going through it, but we are going through a little more of it because we didnt have the kind of thought that shouldve gone through in the last few years. Anymore questions . Yes, sir. I live in barrington. 10,000 . Rsity vincent that is a myth too. That used to be a long time ago but Brown University make s everyone who is a professor sign a document that they do not take advantage of that, if they want to work there. So that is a myth. This one guy, when i was mayor there was one guy who took it. It was grandfathered. I think he is maybe not with us anymore but it was a long time ago. I think he did live in barrington but there was one guy in the whole stay. In the whole state. That does not happen anymore. They say churches dont pay taxes. Yes they do. They pay taxes on their records but they have an exemption of 40 or 50,000 bucks. There are a lot of things out there that could be taxed. I was surprised to see the latest poll that came back the people, they say it is ok to tax soda. 1 cents for the soda, 1 penny in town so if you buy a 36ounce bottle of soda it is 36 cents for the sugar tax. I couldnt believe the poll came back saying people would not object strongly to paying a tax on entertainment. Trinity, it would ruin that place. And even like concerts, baseball games, Football Games and all that stuff. I had an interesting show on tax credits for the movies. We used to do the movies. We did them here to what we started the Film Commission. We did the providence play here. Did i tell you the story about baltimore . I did not tell you . We started the movie industry here by starting a Film Commission and then we would have a party in los angeles every year, all the people who did the films in providence and we ended up getting people to do movies. For instance we have been fairly brothers to do something about mary, and a bunch of other movies, and we moved into the film tax credits. That was passed after i left , but it was our initiative that did it. We recommended it. I will never forget, we had this providence movie that went on for five years. Nbc did it and it all the show the city beautiful in the fall, film and everything. I will never forget one time they wanted to film and they said, the water was too low in the water place part. They werent getting the right shot. I said what you want me to do . They said, i want to raise the river. [laughter] vincent who the hell do you think i am . So they said you can do it. , we have the hurricane barrier and the hurricane barrier was built to take millions of gallons of water out of the city so it takes a water out of the city from the tributaries and rains and pushes the water out into the bay. Those ponds would reverse so they wanted to reverse the palms the pumps and bring the water into the city. I said, go ahead and do it. So we did it. The director said a little more, a little more. They got the water up and finally stopped and had a beautiful water level so they could have their boat into a in a scene. But the mayor of baltimore amaze d me. He said i liked the show you , have on friday nights call providence. He said i have a show too. I said what is it . He said homicide. [laughter] said, no, i do not want that. That is a bad one. Anybody else . Yes, sir. Besides yourself, who was your favorite american politician . Vincent that is a hard question. Because i really like jerry ford because i got to know him very , well. I thought he was a decent man. Im not saying he was a great politician but he was a good friend and i always admired him. I will tell you a funny story about him. He came to campaign for the presidency in 76. Even after he lost he would come back and we would campaign together. We were going down to a fundraiser. We went to the airport and i got in the car with him and we drove to newport. We got to newport in here to down there and we had to stop at a hotel. What is the name of that hotel . Hyatt i think. Thing witho a press one of the channels. I stayed outside. There was a big crowd there. We stayed for half an hour to then he got back into the car. But there was a third guy in the car. So i knew who he was. He sat in the car in the jump seat and it was only a fiveminute ride to go to this house we were going to to go to this party. And, so this guy said, this is 1976, im going to go here and im going to campaign here and go to alaska and do this, that and the other. We got to the house and the guy got out of the car and i was moving to get out and the president grabbed my arm. He said buddy, who is that guy . I said he is the secretary of the navy, the guy who lives in middletown. He didnt know who he was. [laughter] vincent and a lot of those funny stories have happened with ford. So he is a favorite of mine but i am biased. I am very biased. I thought kennedy didnt have enough time in office, but i think he was very charismatic and a lot of people from my generation got a lot of inspiration from him. I think there were so many who you can look to who have different qualities in different areas that you try to emulate or try to respect or at least even fall in love with. There are many many people on the local level better heroes, who have ever done who may have done jobs you have never heard of. People who make decisions and who were very honorable. I also have people i will never forget i dont know if i , can tell this in front of cspan. In 1979, i was very interested in passing an antique an antidiscrimination ordinance that would bar discrimination against minorities. We didnt have one on the book s, so i wanted to push it through. To show you political correctness. I got everybody on board to do it. How could you be against it . But there were some people who were against gays. First, iarted the hired the first gay liaison in my office and we did all kinds of things with that community to make them feel wanted and included. And i will never forget, this was 1976. And it was a councilman his name , was cerelli from the sixth ward. He was head of the ordinance committee. He used to have a gold chain around his neck and he smoked a cigar. So he was head of the ordinance committee. So i went home, it was 11 00 and i turn the news on and it was live. And there is a reporter called beverly, and she was the roving reporter. Inside would say, from city hall, and they bring out some really cerelli from a long meeting. Smoking a cigar with a shirt open and chains and he says well having this long hearing about the mayors antidiscrimination ordinance. He says yes, i talked to the mayor about it. What is going to happen . It might pass and i might even vote for it. Maybe. But i already told the mayor i dont want no fags on the police department. In front of a live audience. [laughter] vincent just turn the tv off. There is no way that was the mentality, you know. Those things happened. Talk about being embarrassed, but anyway he wasnt one of my heroes. [laughter] vincent anyways does anybody , else have any questions . Yes, sir. Are you still tap tap thing cap dancing tap dancing . Vincent they use to force me to do that. I used to do that with you. Vincent is that right . I used to sing on the kitty review. I think that helped me. When i came, when i became older, i prosecuted a lot of cases and i think singing on the radio helped a lot. I was not afraid to face the crowd. I think i liked to tap dance. Vincent at they introduce you one point as the fat tapper. They called me a lot of things in my life. Any other questions . [indiscernible] vincent that was an interesting trip. My friend Barnaby Evans comes to my office in 1994. We created this great template. He said i want to like the light the rivers on fire. Are you nuts . Set the river on fire . I let the first one on new years eve in 1994 and who knew it would go this far . It cost if you have a full one. 150,000, it is a wonderful thing because it really celebrates the arts in our community and really truly is a combination of fire and smoke. All these people smoking are the ones down there first. It is the smoke and it is the sense of place. The buildings and the sculptures out of the ground and the lights it istists, and a lot of original music. And he has replicated it in other cities, but only for one performance or two days or Something Like that. I think he did in houston and i think he is going to go to italy. This is the home of water fire and it is a wonderful wonderful implementation of an idea. It is kind of nonsecular. It is a sense of place. It is amazing. [indiscernible] vincent yeah i think it does. Hotels fill up and the restaurants make money and we get tax revenues that. But we made a deal with them. He gets all the licensing on it. As he should. He has to buy all of the wood and all that stuff. But one year the governor tried , to stop it. It was an electionyear but i didnt have an opponent so i didnt care. I guess someone complained about the smoke and they said it violated epa and all that stuff. I called him back and i said well, your office or my office . , so they decided discretion was the better part of valor and they didnt stop it. So anybody else . , i had a Law School Professor one time that said, sometimes it is better to be so i will sit down. Thank you. [applause] on history bookshelf, hear from the countrys bestknown American History writers of the past decade every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern. You can watch any of our programs at any time when you visit our website, cspan. Org history. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. Recently, American History tv was at the american historicalassociations annual meeting in denver colorado. We spoke with professors, authors and grad students about their research. This interview is about 20 minutes. Here at theeuman historical association, your session is on sunday called one cause, to democracies two democracies. Why did the Suffrage Movement start in both britain and the u. S. . Johanna it is interesting because the timing in the united states, there is dispute among historians on when the movement actually began. Most people