>>,,. as i was thinking of this title, i realized, this is a potential problem, because i was really talking about the presidents and jokes and humor, and i know enough about the history of the presidency, and some of you psrhaps will have caught on, there is a potential problem there. there were two presidents who served before the white house was the official residence of the president. and so if i wanted to say the presidency and humor, humor in the white house didn't quite do it. but then i thought about it s'more, and actually, it does work. neither of the first two presidents had a sense of humor. [laughs] [laughs] so it gets me out of that problem. but i'm going to follow the lead of perhaps the most successful humourist in the white house. it might not be the person you are thinking of, by doing what he always did, or in most cases, what he did at the beginning of a talk, he started with a joke. some of you will have heard this joke. please pretend you haven't heard it before and laugh at the appropriate point. so this is a joke, and this is a key to part of my story that ronald reagan used to tell this joke. and the key is, as you see, is that ronald reagan was effectively telling this story on himself. it related to a time in his career when he didn't know what he was doing or where he was going. as you will know of ronald reagan, he had two careers, primarily. he was a film actor and then he became a politician. but there was an interregnum, a period in between, the time after he stopped getting calls from hollywood producers, he couldn't get any good roles, between when his career ended and his political career, his film career ended an his political career began. he had a rather unusual position. in fact, it was a job that was invented for him by the general electric corporation. general electric was the great industrial behemoth of the american economy. and reagan was their paid spokesman. and he was a host, a television host, for the g. e. theater. and the g. e. theater was, well, it was an experiment in television. this was in the 1950s. no one knows what to do with tv and they think we can do filmed plays, and people watch plays on tv. so, reagan was the host. he wasn't a star. he was in a couple of these, but he mostly just introduced them. that's what he would do on weekends. during the week, he would travel the country giving speeches on behalf of general electric, and the glories and wonders and conveniences of electricity. better living through electricity. this was what he would do. and you would find itself because reagan in that phase of his life was afraid to fly. and he had written into his contract that he would not fly. and so he traveled by train across the country. and he would go through the small towns, and very often he would find himself addressing the local rotary club or the elks or the chamber of commerce. and he used to call these other people [inaudible] the rubber chickens or get. and he would find himself in the small towns where people didn't know who he was because he wasn't famous. he was never, sort of, and a list actor. he was sort of the actor, as jack warner, his boss at warner brothers said, when he heard that reagan was running for president of the united states -- excuse me, here is running for the governor of california in the 1960s. is that, no, no, jimmy stewart for governor, record for best. friend [laughter] >> and that was the kind of faulty plate. so anyway, he's this relative known entity. and he's going to these rather obscure towns and giving these sort of standard talks. so the story that reagan told went like this. he is about to give a talk in some small town in the midwest, and he doesn't know that people, he's going to be speaking to, it's been lined up by his publicity agent. and so he's going to address this group. and one of the locals, the program director of whatever clip it was -- mccullough tlc -- is going to introduce reagan. but the thing is that the program director isn't familiar with ronald reagan, and he simply sees the printed name -- ronald, our g a and on the program. and he's supposed to introduce them and act like he knows something about him. but the problem is that he doesn't know how the last name or eeg am is supposed to be pronounced. it could be reagan, it could be regan. and people of irish background pronounce it both ways so this man is in a quandary. no, this is back in the 1950s. you know today, you could just go on youtube and some would be introducing a mayor and hear how it's pronounced. no, you can do that. so this guy, and he's pretty conscientious. he wants to get it right. he doesn't want to embarrass his guest and he doesn't want to embarrass his group so he is trying to figure out how he is going to solve this problem and how he's going to discover how this name is pronounced. so he's deep in thought on the morning before the top. and it's a small town aunties walking around is, walking around like this, so one of [inaudible] and while he's walking, he encounters one of his neighbors. the neighbor is out walking his dog. and in fact so this guy actually doesn't encounter the labor and he actually drove some of the dog and oh and the neighbor says, while joe, boy you really look like you're worried. what's going on? and joyce starts to say, well, he explains the deal. and he is starting to sandy sort of reaches in his pocket and he pulls out the program and he says, you know this guy? you ever heard of this guy? how do i pronounce his name? and he looks at it, oh, it's ronald reagan. yeah, he used to be an actor. and joe says, so your show is reagan? yeah, yeah, is record. you say reagan, you'll be fine. he says, oh boy, thanks. you've lifted a huge load off my top shoulders. and they start walking back and he repeats to himself, reagan, reagan,, reagan. and as he's walking back, he again trips over the top. until it's down there and says, that's acute dog, what kind of top is it? >> a bagel. [laughter] so. this is, this is ronald reagan's approach. and it characterizes sort of the large part of where i'm going to be going with my talk because by the time reagan was president humor was considered a necessary part of the political arsenal of a president and also pretended it and this because well you know i told you this story no one would say it's an enormously clever story bridges enough to get a ha ha ha a little bit. reagan recognized from those years on the rubber chicken circuit that if there is an audience that does [inaudible] if there's an audience that might be a little bit skeptical about the message that you are conveying, if you can't get them to a laugh it loosens them up. it makes them feel that you are a real person and not simply this flak for ge. and it worked for ge, for reagan's governor, for recognize president of the united states. and it records represented something of a culmination of a trend that had been going on for a long period of time. so i'm going to cover some of that trend. now, while i was -- after i told it believes what the topic was going to be tonight, i sort of got to think about it a little bit more, and i happen to be teaching as of, well, this january, so just last month, a course that i -- i teach this course every other year. and it's a course on the history of the presidency. and it's the standard for me to begin the course with -- a boat up on the screen, like this, -- i put an image, an illustration -- in this case a portrait -- of our first president and our current president. and i've been teaching it long enough that i go back to this course, back to george w. bush. and so, our first president, our current president, and underneath, the one word, explain. and so this is the theme of the course, this is what the students actually have to do on their final exam. how did we get from george washington to george w. bush? how did we get from george washington through barack obama? how did we get from george washington to donald trump? now, one of the striking things is that if you go from george washington two most presidents before the current president, you see a kind of linear progression. now, some people would think that it's a decline, that the curve looks down. in fact, this question of, this comparison between the first president and the current president goes all the way back to the second president. presidents always look better in the rearview mirror than they do when they're right front and center. part of this is that we tend to -- i don't know -- we sort of tend to forget the failures and remember the successes. that's part of it. the other thing is that presidents are usually pretty talented people. and so, they usually have a lot of positive things that can be said about them. but while they are president, typically the other party or sometimes factions within their own party, have an incentive to tell you all the bad things about them. but once they leave office, that incentive is largely gone. this is why certain presidents fall themselves into thinking, you know, i could have run for a third term. white house in her, dwight eisenhower was more popular by polling at the end of his presidency than he was at the beginning of his presidency. and he used to think, boy, i could have gotten a third term. bill clinton, bill clinton was more popular in the year 2000 and he was in the year 1993. he used to think that, okay, if he could have run for a third term, he would have won. they for themselves because by 1960, the democrats had no incentive to go after dwight eisenhower. they were focusing all their fire on the next one, richard nixon. the republicans in 2000 had no particular reason to go after bill clinton anymore. he got a free pass. they were aiming their guns at al gore. so, this question of sort of popularity and how presidents look better in the rearview mirror is partly due to this artifact off nobody snapping at them any more, when whereas once they're in office, all everyone is, you learn all the bad things about them. but perhaps the clearest statement, the clearest assertion of presidential decline was made by henry adams, who was an observer of presidents from the -- wealthy was the grandson of john adams, so he was a great son of john adams and the grandson of john quincy adams. henry adams, he had brothers, and the adams family was in this state of political to decline where there were two atoms presidents in their background, but henry adams couldn't make even a start in politics. but henry adams became a very distinguished historian, and he was, when he was writing in the 18 60s, 18 60s and early 18 70s, when ulysses grant was president, and this was just ten years after the publication of charles darwin's on the origin of species, the introduction of the theory of evolution. and adams's take on this was that anybody who looks at the progression of the presidency from george washington to ulysses grant understands that evolution is a crock. [laughter] that it actually refutes the theory. anyway, but i am going to start off -- so, i was going to say that, so in most cases, it looks as though there's this then you lied, there's this line that maybe you think it goes down, maybe you think it goes up, but it george washington, it's a tough act to follow. but there's a striking thing, at least, i'm going to propose this to you and you could decide whether you agree with this or not. and there is one sense, one sense at least, in which donald trump is positively -- and this isn't adjective that i haven't heard applied to donald trump -- that donald trump is positively washingtonian. he is very much like the father of our country. and do you know what? can you guess what i'm going to say is that particular, that particular characteristic? six or three, that's not too bad! all right! well, well, okay. so i hear it in the front, but i'm not going to advertise just yet. you all know the story -- well, i don't know if you all know this -- but it's part of an american historical lawyer that george washington, you know the story about george washington and the territory and how he chopped down the cherry tree and his father said, you know, who chopped down the cherry tree? said, i cannot tell a lie, i chopped it down with my acts, and so on. so, we have this impression that george washington couldn't tell a lie. i don't actually think that's true. i've written off of washington's diary and letters to know that you fudge to the truth. but george washington, whether or not george washington couldn't tell a lie, he could not tell a joke. [laughter] and he couldn't village look, or maybe it's just that he wouldn't elegiac. nor would he laugh at asia, have jokes. this in part because he presented himself to the wall that is very sober minded, serious character. as a young man, he got a hold of this list of sort of maxims and principles of life for a young man. something like 110 of them. and one of them said, laugh seldom and never in distinguished company. he wrote this down. and these were words that he came to live by. now, i really don't know if in his private life, george washington -- now, i don't think it told jokes. he might have left at jokes. but in his public life, he certainly did not. and people would try to warn him up. there's a story that is told on good authority about george washington at the constitutional convention. this is before he's president. he's actually president of the convention. and he is this austere figure, he is the commander of the continental army, he is the one who won the revolutionary war, therefore the independence for these united states. and he's presiding over the constitutional convention. and he was chosen in part because he was this very straight laced, sober minded individual. he also wouldn't say much. it was known that he wouldn't participate in debates. and you became president, the presiding officer, and it gives him the excuse not to. but some of the other members of the convention, they, one in particular, [inaudible] morris, who was a -- he had lived at different times in new york and pennsylvania -- and he was a delegate to the convention from pennsylvania. and she was very much a, hail fellow, well mitt, type. and he walked on a wooden leg. and the story that was sometimes told about him, he liked till the story, that he had lost his leg in the revolutionary war. it was a battle injury. the other story that was told about him is that he badly injured himself diving out of the bedroom window -- [laughter] -- of one of his lovers just at the moment that her husband was returning from. and it was badly [inaudible] and a leg had to be agitated. robert morris was one who wanted this convention to be, well, not quite as summer as it seemed to be. so he made a bet with some of his friends there, including how man alexander herr molten -- alexander hamilton [inaudible] -- and hamilton knew washington better than morris did. and so, he made this bet that he could actually loosen up george washington. and so hamilton said you to [inaudible] what you want to wager to be? it'll be the finest dinner in philadelphia for a dozen of each of our friends. so if i win and then you treat us and if you win that i treat you so he goes up to george washington and this is a addict rake in the gathering and he puts his -- soft george washington on the shoulder, puts his arm around. says, george, how are you doing? glad to see you! and the governor morris tells the story, he said at this moment general washington fixed me with an icy glare. and he took my hand and lifted it off his shoulder and fixed me with that gays and all i could think about was, how can i get out of this room as quickly as possible? it was a george washington. and that was the kind of person americans expected as the president. that's the kind of person americans wanted as their president in the early days of the republic. in what i call the augustan age of the american presidency, a nature that runs out from george washington to john quincy adams. before the united states became a democracy, that is a system in which the ordinary people actually exercise political power, ordinary people did not elect george washington. ordinary people, for the most part, did not even elect the electors who chose george washington. according to the constitution, and there are computers that the hallow start center is giving way out there, you will read that each state cell select electors and. it doesn't say how. they get to truth the legislature, the states get to choose how the legislators are chosen. and tell slate of the 18 20s, most state legislatures to the electors, not the voters in the. state and in that era americans expected their presidents to stand above them. no one wanted george washington to be just one of the gaming. and this is why washington could get away with giving that reaction to grosvenor worse because it really served its purpose is to be apart from everyone else, because that's what americans wanted. and the idea that the presidency when, he became president, the presidency was a serious undertaking. and the idea that your president should have a sense of humor, that laughs and can laugh, especially in any kind of public setting, this, this just clashed with the idea that politics is a serious business, governing this country is a serious business. and so, it really hard-pressed to find a sense of humor, to find anybody in the white house telling jokes, really before about andrew jackson, who's elected in 1820. eight even with andrew jackson, it's a little bit hard to find anything that looks like modern humor. and i took up this subject understanding that conveying jokes or humor from the past to the president is a difficult undertaking because tastes change and perhaps you've heard the saying of felonious mike, that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. [laughter] well, it's a little bit like that. to translate, you'll see, to translate humor from the past to the present, something is lost in the translation, but i'm going to try anyway, and i think this is -- your look like a learned audience. [laughter] so i think you're going to be able to get this. one andrew jackson is the first really popularly elected president. he's the one who makes the presidency preeminent lee the people's office. and his election appalled members of the establishment, members of, well, the adams family, and supportive of all those presidents who had come from the elite, from the american aristocracy. he was the first real common meant to be president. and especially in places like new england, around boston, around harvard college, the idea that this unlettered westerner, this uncouth militarist, should be president of the united states was something they had a really hard time getting their heads around. and john quincy adams, who is defeated by jackson in 1828, and went back to massachusetts to like his wounds and to really fret over the future of the republic, if this is the kind of person the presidency attracts, there is no hope. well, there were people in new england there, were people at harvard, who took a different view. this is the way the world is going. we have to make our peace with it. and so the board of trustees of harvard decided that in the interest of holding out and olive branch, they were going to present there, we're going to offer, to president jackson, and honorary harvard degree. john quincy adams almost had if it. and he wrote to the president off harvard, saying, you can't do this! it was only the reputation of my dear alma mater. but the occasion went forward. there were dissenters on the faculty, and they decided, oh, okay, we can't stop this. but we will show jackson up. in those days, it was not unheard of, and it was still accepted practice on certain occasions, for academics to give their address