Print things and publish things. It is not a freedom for what we now refer to institutionally as the press. Lectures in history on American History tv on cspan3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lecture s in history is always available as podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. This week on q a, president ial historian Richard Norton smith discusses his book, an uncommon man, the triumph of Herbert Hoover. Richard smith, why kdid you call your book you wrote 35 years ago, uncommon man . Its taken from the title of a relatively famous hoover speech about the uncommon man. You remember Vice President henry wallace, who was the second of fdrs Vice President s, gave a famous speech in 1942, maybe 43, about the common man. And wallace, from the left of center, perspective, was projecting in effect the goals and am birgss of the generation that was fighting world war ii. It wasnt enough to simply beat the nadzis, but to create at home, a true democracy. A place where the common m
Captioning performed by vitac its a spy story, its a humanitarian story, its a political and diplomatic story. Hoover was not very diplomatic by nature. The interesting thing is lou said later on that he was never the same after belgium. What he saw particularly the children. Remember, he was an orphan. All his life, there was something about hoover, he was not naturally gifted in social interaction. But with children, there was a different person. And belgium stamped him, for better or worse. The other remarkable thing again, building on what we said earlier, it was all voluntary. He appealed to the American People. He said, again, the American People, if you tell them what you need, they will give you their shirt off their backs. And there is a you go to west branch, the records are there. It is its a remarkable story there was one group, i think there was a kansas club of new york, who were going to build a clubhouse. And instead of building the clubhouse, they gave hoover the 500,0
Richard norton smith, why did you call your book that you wrote 35 years ago uncommon man . Well, its taken, actually, from the title of a relatively famous hoover speech about the uncommon man. Remember, Vice President henry wallace, who was the second of fdrs Vice President s, gave a famous speech in 1942, i believe, maybe43, about the century of the common man. And wallace, from a left of center perspective, was projecting, in effect, the goals and ambitions of the generation that was fighting world war ii. And it wasnt enough simply to defeat the nazis, but to create at home a true democracy. A place where the common man would finally come into his own. And hoover approached this from a different place on the political spectrum. He was, in effect, making the case for what we might call a meritocracy. But something to say, that i shouldnt paraphrase it, but, you know, when you get sick, you want an uncommonly skillful doctor. When we go to war, we want an uncommonly able general. Yo
Science and technology being applied to deal with them today. After that, Prime Ministers questions from the british house of commons. Then a campaign profile of joe biden. Host eric jay dolin, in your new book about hurricane history i , thought it would be interesting to start our discussion with one of the stories you tell because its the deadliest hurricane in American History and also the 120th anniversary. Eric in early september, a hurricane was fully making its way across the atlantic going inbetween cuba and florida, but the local meterologists in galveston, texas, isaac kline, based on his understanding of how hurricanes operated, he had told residents of galveston that the odds of a hurricane hitting galveston are virtually nil. The laws of hurricanes indicate that hurricanes would rarely hit texas. They were lulled into a false sense of complacency. As the hurricane got closer and closer. Isaac kline became more and more alarmed. It was really up to the Headquarters Office
Interesting to start our discussion with one of the stories you tell because its the deadliest hurricane in American History and also the 120th anniversary. Eric in early september, a hurricane was fully making its way across the atlantic going inbetween cuba and florida, but the local meterologists in galveston, texas, isaac kline, based on his understanding of how hurricanes operated, he had told residents of galveston that the odds of a hurricane hitting galveston are virtually nil. The laws of hurricanes indicate that hurricanes rarely hit texas. They were lulled into a false sense of complacency. As the hurricane got closer and closer, isaac kline became more alarmed. It was really up to the Headquarters Office of the Weather Bureau in washington, d. C. To decide whether or not a hurricane was coming and whether or not you needed to put up hurricanes warning flags. The local meterologists such as isaac kline had left latitude in calling the shots. So on the morning of september 8,