We are very glad to have Karl Rove with us this afternoon. A few people have asked

me. Karl Rove speaking to British studies. Isn’t that a good line? These

are people who haven’t read this excellent book. I’m familiar with it.

And as a consequence of 1898, there were a lot of international responses,

not least were the British. We can pursue this. So I will introduce

Mr. Rove and George Scott Christian. Well, then introduce the speaker

and we’ll go from there. My pleasure. It’s a really

great pleasure to be in this kind of distinguished company today. And I was

thinking about last night, what am I how how do I never reduce Karl Rove because he’s so well-known, not

only in the Austin community, but all over the world, really.

And I think the way I’m going to do it is to just let

you know something about him. He and my father, George Christian, and also my mother, Joanne

Christian, were very fond of Karl. And I think they were very close friends.

And I thought what would bring together kind of a sort of old conservative Democrat

who’d been in Texas politics for 30 or some odd years and and work for governors and

for President Johnson, you know, together with a kind of young rising star in the GOP

political consulting world who really came down here to build

the Republican Party, which really had not existed around here since Reconstruction.

And Karl, I think in some ways is the architect, you know,

of the two party system in Texas, certainly in my experience. And I

think what brought them together was they both were voracious and.

Ah. Karl is still a voracious reader of history.

And they both looked at things from an historical perspective. And I think they had a deep

mutual regard and respect for each other based

on, you know, how much it meant to them to be able to

kind of bridge their political gap and and really discuss the future

of our country and our state in constructive boys and found ways

certainly to work across party lines. And

I think, you know, one of my dad’s blast, I think memories was

that was what kind of friendship he was able to have with with Karl and certainly with President

Bush. And I will never forget you for that and appreciate

that. And with that, I will introduce Karl Rove.

Thanks, George Scott. There is a simpler explanation I loved your man. Oh, man, I loved him.

He when I came to Austin, they hunted. Republicans were dogs and

I was the only Republican political consultant in Austin. And in nineteen eighty seven,

your dad was working on a constitutional amendment campaign, having to do with federal

reimbursement of highway funds, being dedicated to highways rather than being stolen by the legislature

for other purposes. And your dad said to Tom

Johnson, who just retired after 52 years as the head of the highway contractors, said to Tom,

we need this a bipartisan effort. We need to get a Republican political consultant. There’s a young one here in Austin.

I think you do a good job. And that’s our friendship began. I loved your old man, and

I went to pay my respects as he was in his final days to his office and expected to be

there maybe 10 or 15 minutes and left two hours later after laughing harder than I’ve left

almost any other time in my life. Because your dad got off telling stories, particularly about

Lyndon Johnson. And some of you may remember Ed Clark,

so tiny little guy wore those old fashioned collars, had the stick pin,

and your dad told me a story about Johnson and Ed Clark and a group of

Johnson’s cronies went on a campaign trip, I think, in 52. And they drove over to CALDWELL.

Actually, they drove it over over to someplace near Bryan College Station on the way back. Johnson said, we’re gonna stop.

And CALDWELL. I know a great place. It has the best chili in Texas. So they drove to the wrong

side of town. And winner of this Dungey dirty little hole in the wall. And Johnson

ordered up around the chili, and all of his aides and lieutenants started to

eat the chili. And it was the God awful hot stuff they’d ever tasted in their life. Johnson

was eating it with great relish. And when he finished eating Hizbollah, Chili looked around at his compatriots, all of whom were sweating

and bright faced and struggling to finish their bowls. Chili and Johnson ordered up another round

of bowls of chili for everybody. And Mr. Clark, as you remember, had a high squeaky

voice. Is Elaine and your dad? Your dad had a fantastic imitation of

best likes it. I have traveled the dusty highways of Texas with you.

I have led my tears fall on the faces of dead men. I did not know I have danced with ugly

women for you. But I’ll be damned if I’m having another bowl of that jelly.

OK. So the triumph of William McKinley

had to tell you. But there’s not much Britain in here. Of course, over the course

of the Gilded Age, one of the big issues is protection. And with Britain being a

the leading free trade country in the world, the Republican Party tended to make

Britain and John Bull a campaign theme.

But it was frankly secondary to the real purpose, which was to attract the Irish vote in the battleground

state of New York. Back in that era, there were some

familiar battleground states. Ohio was a battleground there. That’s why virtually every Republican ticket

had a or Ohio and for president or vise president on it in Indiana.

But the big the big the big bloc of battleground states, the ones that were up for

grabs and each and every election were Connecticut, New Jersey, to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania

and New York, the biggest state in the union. So the Republicans would beat up on

John Bull not only for the value of demonstrated, they were in favor of protecting the

paychecks of American working people, but also in order to attract the Irish vote.

There is the issue of protection becomes a less dominant issue

in the 1896 campaign now because McKinley wants it to be. He wants the entire election to be fought

over it. But he very early on in the campaign loses control of the issue agenda

to a 36 year old punk from Nebraska, failed two term

congressman who is in his own mind thinks he’s gonna be a presidential

candidate, but nobody else thinks he’s going to be a presidential candidate. In fact, he becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party

only after giving a speech that is itself the result of seven accidents,

seven accidents. Bring William Jennings Bryan into the moment to stand up in front of 20000 people

and give the cross of gold speech at the end of a two hour long debate on the currency plank of the Democratic

platform. People are literally bored and leaving when he stands up to speak, but he speaks

and energizes the crowd. And the next day is nominated the Democratic nominee for president,

even though at the time of him speaking, nobody thinks he’s a candidate. In fact, the night before

his. He has dinner in a restaurant in downtown Chicago with his wife and his

close adviser. A Texan named Rosser, who is the superintendent of the state

insane asylum. And and there are men

parading up and down in front of the doors of the restaurant, the windows of the restaurant, chanting

the names of the front runners. Governor boys of Iowa and

the real front runner, Richard Park, Bland missoura. And Brian leans over and says to

his wife and his close friend. These men don’t know it. But tomorrow night they’ll be chanting

my name. And she says, Well, Mr.

Rosser, do you think Mr. Mr. Bryant has a real chance of winning? And before Rosser

can answer. Brian says, basically, take

it to the bank. You can sleep soundly tonight. Tomorrow. Bye. By this time, the day after tomorrow,

I will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. And literally, Rosser thinks that he’s got another patient from the state who

says there is a minor a reference in and

I didn’t get to put it of editor’s damn them. They cut out one of the fun little stories in the book.

There is this failed politician, desperate, ambitious

young man. He ran for mayor of New York City and came in third.

And he is. He’s opposed by the by the

Republican machine in New York. This is an era of great political machines. In the Republican

machines are led by the easy boss, Senator Thomas. Call your plan

of New York. And he hates this young man and is not never going to allow him. D.B.,

slated for office. And incidentally, the easy boss,

just everybody needs to have a nickname in this area. Everybody has a nickname. His one of his chief lieutenants is

the is the blonde boss, Congressman William J. Larmer, the 34 year old congressman,

with 10000 patronage jobs at his disposal. Anyway, there is this failed politician,

and he’s desperate to resurrect his political career. And he decides the only way to do so is to

attach himself to a political candidate who’s gonna get elected president and then

accompany him to Washington. And so this young man supports the Republican frontrunner.

Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine, the speaker of the House who’s about six foot three tall, inches tall,

the young man works hard on behalf of his candidate, but his candidate comes up short.

And afterwards, he writes a letter to his sister in which he says,

we’ve got a good platform and saying Lewis and McKinley is a good man, but he is weak.

And I worry about him in a moment of crisis for our country. Two days later, he’s riding one of McKinley’s closest

personal friends, saying we must do everything we can to elect McKinley. And when he gets elected,

you must be the secretary of the treasury, or at least the minister of France. And my ambitions,

such as they are, can go by the wayside, which was his way of saying, I need your help. And

he spends the next five months weaseling his way into the campaign, shows

up his could, taken a vacation. So he shows up at the Chicago headquarters on his way to his vacation

and counsels with the 32 year old campaign manager of the McKinley campaign, a man

you’ve never heard of but should have, and writes letters to all of his friends about

what he’s hearing and what advice he’s giving when Mark Hanna, McKinley’s close personal friend and

money raiser, shows up in New York. He has dinner with him the first night, arranges to have dinner and says,

here’s how you can upload approach. Boss Platt, he doesn’t like you and he doesn’t like me. But here’s how to

handle the man. And you need to handle him because otherwise you’re gonna lose his battleground state.

A friend of his is invited to go on a campaign speaking tour in upstate New York. A U.S. senator and

he writes his friend and says the young man and says, you need to join me on a campaign swing and don’t

give me all these excuses. This is really important, not knowing that his friend is desperately

looking for a chance to shine on the campaign trail. So the two men go on a five day speaking

tour through upstate New York and. The U.S. senator

doesn’t grab the headlines because he gets up and gives a thoughtful speech about the necessity of sound

protection laws and sound money currency. And here are the deep differences between the two parties

in his colleague. The failed politician gets up and beats the crap out of William Jennings Bryan,

saying the most vicious and nasty and ugly things you can ever imagine. And of course, the newspapers write him up

as the headline at the end of their five day tour. We’re gonna go visit the major,

Major McKinley in Canton, Ohio. And one of their friends, John Hay, writes a mutual friend,

Henry Adams, and says H.A. have gone to Canton to bare their tummies and commit

Harry Carey in front of the major. McKinley invited me to join the crowd. But did you get to

watch the spectacle? But I didn’t want to join the crowd ruining his lawn. So the young

man goes just to Canton, behaves his respects to McKinley, who doesn’t

like him. And but something happens in McKinley’s people say when you go on a speaking

tour through Illinois, a battleground state, and Michigan, a battleground state,

and trail William Jennings Bryan during the course of your of his tour there. And do what you did in

upstate New York. So the young man goes to Chicago and gives a speech in front of twenty

three thousand college students. The College Republican Assembly back then, the

college and virtually every college campus was dominated by Republicans. Yale voted 96

percent for McKinley in this in the student straw poll that year.

In fact, the the Prohibition Party almost got as many votes on the Yale campus

as did the silver Democrats. But going to show that college campuses really have changed. The drunks

would carry the vote today. But it gets up and gives a speech called

called the Age of the demagog and proceeds to kick the holy

crap out of William Jennings Bryan in front of these college kids. But he’s interrupted by a

Brit. There’s a fat, fanatical British silver money man

named Morgan Freeman, and he gets up and proceeds to heckle

the Republican speaker during the course of his speech. And afterwards, the speaker writes a letter

to his friend, he says.

Just a line to tell you about my Western trip first and least important as to myself.

I made a success of it and got in good form and spoke to immense audiences who always listened attentively

and sometimes in Chicago, in Detroit were mad with enthusiasm. The only serious

interruption I had was, funnily enough, by Morton Frequent in Chicago. After a little sparring,

I used him up so that he left the hall. Theodore Roosevelt.

So the two men had been friends in Morton, had taken his inheritance,

and bought a bunch of North Dakota cattle land. And, like Roosevelt, lost virtually all of those investment in the

cattle and cattle country during a terrible winter in which the herds on the North Plains were

decimated. So he was a bye medalist and spent the campaign in them in America trying to

encourage the election of William Jennings Bryan. But the but the young man who is his friend,

Theodore Roosevelt, used him up and made him so angry, left the hall. Actually,

the news reports differ, but one Chicago newspaper said it was the police that removed him

from the audience, not himself. Anyway, I don’t know what else you want me to say about this. Maybe Bill

has some questions or you might have some questions. I can give you a hell of a stemwinder on the book. It’s

a damn good read. It’s got sex and violence

and backstabbing and betrayal and really cool nicknames and

twists and turns worthy of a cooked up Hollywood screenwriter. And it’s an important election.

We might have some political science majors here who studied the election. It’s one of the considered

by V.O. Key one. Yep. Have you studied it? Yeah. There we go.

Excellent. Go ahead. I’m curious. During the election,

it seems that you didn’t really have a lot to say about it when you asked about it.

Considering my options like that, Cleveland. Are you optimistic?

That’s the worst

position. Well, McKinley is chairman, and we can tell

by looking at McKinley’s past, McKinley is twice the chairman of the Resolutions Committee at the Republican

National Convention and ironically enough, led in part by the son of

of Ulysses S. Grant, Frederick Dent Grant. The Republican Party in the 1870s and 80s

becomes huge enthusiasts of Cuban liberation of a free Cuba. In fact, that the 1880

of other states and then of the other country, major countries around the world.

And the most prominent place over the podium is given to the flag of a free Cuba.

So my sense is that he was he viewed he was not an imperialist.

He didn’t. He didn’t. He was he was reelected. In fact, he gives a incredible speech.

I read a lot of his speeches and they’re very formulaic. But there’s one speech in particular that is deeply

spoken from the heart, which is the speech he gives on October 9th to a group of two thousand Confederate

veterans. And he says, if we were ever forced to fight again and God forbid that we shall,

we shall do so under we shall do so as brothers under a common flag. So he

this guy spent four years in war, in the civil war. He begins as a private. He ends as a major.

He survives three. He has three battlefield promotions for unbelievable

valor. He survives two suicide missions. He says many of his friends and comrades

shot and killed. And he isn’t in he is forever after a gentle soul who wants to avoid

war. So he was not a war monger looking for a confrontation with Cuba. The sense

as it was, is forced upon him. My book doesn’t deal with this as much. But Robert Mary has a wonderful

new biography of McKinley, well-worth reading that deals with Hezbollah. Could you go ahead and say a few more words

about the war in 1898 against Spain and the consequences to our Pacific? Well,

I mean, did you see them today? We take Cuba, we take the Philippines.

We take Puerto Rico. We have previously annexed Hawaii. We give

up Cuba as quickly as possible. The goal was to give up the Philippines

as soon as possible as well. McKinley doesn’t live long enough. My sense is McKinley would have found a way

to give up the Philippines a lot longer, a lot earlier than subsequent presidents did.

But because McKinley’s view is we’ve got plenty to say grace over, we want we want Puerto Rico

because Puerto Rico is important for our for our naval power in the Caribbean and

the windward. Remember, at this point, they’re still thinking a lot about the age of sail

and why Haiti and Puerto Rico were important was because the currents and

the wind brought sailing vessels naturally into the Caribbean close to those two islands. So.

To protect our interests in the Caribbean, Americans had for 20 or 30 years thought

about having a major coaling station someplace in the in the Caribbean.

And then and then Hawaii was like the Gibraltar of the Pacific.

And there had been an attempt to annex it under Cleveland, which had come to naught.

But McKinley was receptive to it. And the island had been in turmoil for a

number of years because of the disagreement between the those that wanted annexation to the United States

and those that wanted to maintain their independence. Any controversy over taking Guantanamo

in Cuba? Well, Guantanamo comes later after after McKinley because we we

take Cuba and then its subsequent presidents who decided we want to have a major installation on the south

side of Cuba. Was there much of a political controversy over that? We did

not much. I mean, in fact, there’s there’s more. Remember that the South has had

and I’d be interested in Bill’s reaction to this. My theory is the South. I mean, from the early

part of the eighteen hundreds to filibuster’s wanted to take Cuba because they saw Cuba as a natural extension of

the slave power. And so their attitude was, we want Cuba because that will be a fertile place for us to have

sugar plantations, cotton plantations and so forth. So there again was a sort of an inbred attitude

of expansionism. Cuba naturally belongs to America and Cuba ought to be in the American orbit.

But but McKinley was not of that mindset. His mindset was

it ought to be independent, free. Let’s ask Bill Burns to say a few words. This point was on

that subject. I mean, I’d like Karl to address this. You’ve shown the cooperation

amid a certain kind of friction between McKinley and Roosevelt. Did McKinley have any idea

when he offered Roosevelt the position of assistant Navy secretary that he was basically handing

over the Republican Party to this new generation because he’s the last of the civil war officers is

present. They’ve all presence have all been in commanding positions in civil war until then. And now here’s this.

This guy who was born two years before the beginning of the civil war. So was there a feeling that the

torch is being passed, especially when he is brought onto the ticket in nineteen hundred? Yeah,

my theory is yes, that this is deliberate. One of the I stumbled on to McKinley because I was

interested in Roosevelt. I was interested in how Roosevelt went from 1895 when his political

career is at an end. He’s done. He’s finished. He is he is a young man,

but he is on the outs. He’s lost the mayorship. He has his reputation

is shattered. He’s not going to be slighted by the party. It’s at an end. So how does he end up

in 1897 as the assistant secretary of the Navy? I mentioned

the letter to Bamby Roosevelt’s sister. The letter that he followed with was a letter

to Charles Bellamy. I’m sorry, Bellamy Steuer, who is a congressman from

Cincinnati, a Catholic and a friend of McKinley’s. Very rare to

have a Catholic Republican congressman in the 1880s and 1890s, McKinley is the first Republican

presidential candidate to be endorsed by a member of the Catholic hierarchy. After he takes on the largest

pressure group in America in the 1880s, in the 1890s called the American Protective Association,

which is a Verilli anti-Catholic group, when he runs for reelection, he’s won election.

Ohio is a very competitive state, just like it was just like it is today. He wins election as

governor of Ohio by twenty one thousand votes. And when it goes to run for reelection,

the the AP, which has something like 80000 thousand members in Ohio,

tells him that he must fire Catholic prison workers and he refuses. And they and

they oppose his reelection and he wins by 80000 votes. So

he’s a modernizer, though, and he sees that the Republican Party, that his generation

is reaching their end and he doesn’t like the generation that immediately followed them. The generation

of the 18, 70s and the early 1880s, which had come to dominance because these were machine

men. These were men who were boodle men. Then graft that he thought that the politics of that

era is was corrupt. So in the 1896 campaign, his campaign

is run by a thirty two year old kid. McKinley meets him in

school in Cincinnati and then lit out for the plains to make his living as a frontier lawyer in Lincoln,

Nebraska. The kid offices in the same small office building as

another young lawyer. In fact, the two men are members of a of a men’s debate club.

And the young lawyers a couple years older than him, four or five years older him. His name is William Jennings Bryan.

And the young kid is a reform minded Republican. And he shows up in McKinley’s office in

Columbus and says, if you run for president, I’m going to be for you. McKinley shows up in Nebraska,

was a battleground state in the fall of 1870 of 1894. And the kid reports

to him that he’s organized Nebraska on his behalf and the Dakotas and is working on some contacts

in Montana. McKinley’s impressed with the kid. So he says to him, says to himself, I want to kid involved.

The kid says, I made some money in a bank deal and some real estate and has decided

he’s going to leave Lincoln and go to Chicago and become an entrepreneur. His idea is he’s going to buy

gas, utilities and knit them together. Back then, gas utilities served a very small area

and there were a lot of them. And his idea was I going to buy these, knit them together, get economies

of scale and make a bunch of money. And so he moves to Illinois in January of eighteen ninety five.

And in Illinois is going to be the critical battleground in the Republican presidential nomination sweepstakes.

Fact one of McKinley’s lieutenants calls it the Gettysburg of the contest. So what is McKinley

do? He picks the kid who has just moved to Chicago and says, you’re the commander of my campaign

in Illinois. The kid has two lieutenants who are civil war generals

who are 20 or 30 years. This is his superiors. And they take they they fall

in love with a kid and take to calling him the general because he’s so well-organized and so meticulous

and they are so respectable. His leadership, they become quite fond of him. And he has another lieutenant who is

a street car conductor and a leader of the young Republicans. And the four of them organize

the state of Illinois and in and in spring of 1896, deal a devastating

blow to the machine, to the blonde boss and his lieutenants

and win the state Republican get mentioned by better than 2 to 1 and end the Republican election sweepstakes

to the nomination sweepstakes. The kid is at this point thirty one years old. And McKinley

says to him, I want you to run my fall campaign. And so Charles G. Dawes goes

to Chicago and runs the fall campaign. When McKinley gets elected,

Dawes is made the comptroller the currency at the age of 32 and commanded the nation’s entire banking

system. He becomes the first director of the very first bureau, the budget under

Warren G. Harding Vise president, the United States under Calvin Coolidge, ambassador to Great

Britain, first head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the second American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But when McKinley sees him, he’s a 30 year old kid who’s shown up in his office saying, if you run, I want to

be for McKinley, had an eye for talent. And the reason he goes with with Roosevelt.

Roosevelt writes the letter after he writes his sister writes that letter to Steuer

and then gets story or more importantly, Mrs. Storya to lobby their close friend William

McKinley on his behalf. He invites them to to Oyster Bay and takes Mrs.

Storya out on Long Island Sound and Roeser around, pouring out his heart. My career

is at an end. The only way that I can resurrected is if McKinley gives me a put Gwynn’s

and gives me a post. But he doesn’t like me, but he loves you. She later wrote that he he rode

like he spoke spasmodically. So she’s scared to death. Azeez Reutter

around Long Island Sound pouring out his heart at the end of the campaign. They go to they go to

McKinley and say, you know, he gave you a good service. He did

what you wanted on the campaign trail. He gave Hannah good advice. He gave you good advice, played a big role

in getting you to get the right message on the monetary question, the currency question, which he did

give him a chance. He doesn’t want to be in the cabinet. He wants a new job that’s never been created. He wants

to be the assistant secretary of Navy. Nobody’s ever had the job. It’s really not that important to resurrect his

career. You owe it to him. He’s that kind of young man you want to want to do. And McKinley says, OK, I’ll give

it to him. But I do not trust your young man, Roosevelt. He’s too pugnacious. But

I think it’s deliberate. I think he is literally going. There’s one guy there is a guy from named Pratt from

from Wisconsin. He is the he is the influence peddler par excellence

in Wisconsin. He represents the railroads and the timber companies. He represents

the big food purchasers of the commodity companies. He he literally is

he owns the street car company in Milwaukee. He’s made so much money as a lobbyist.

And at the end of the campaign, he goes to any devotes the entire campaign fall at the spring and the fall

to helping McKinley. He’s got a smart nose. He says that guy’s going to win. Attach myself to him.

He spends the entire fall, the entire summer, the entire fall, working full time for McKinley, doing

everything that what could be asked as a member of the Republican Executive Committee at the end of the campaign, he goes

to McKinley and we don’t know what he asked for, but he asked for something in the cabinet and McKinley

passed him over. Why? Because he didn’t want that kind of influence peddler and butler in his cabinet.

And so, yeah, I think it was deliberate. I’d like to ask a question about the international

dimension of all this, especially in 1998, when it comes to a surprise to the

British that the Americans have taken over the Philippines especially and territories

in the Caribbean. But to the British. This is okay for one reason. It

prevents further German expansion in the Pacific. But there’s

another dimension to it, because a few years later, the British and Japanese conclude an

alliance with the US and the Anglo Japanese alliance, the

Americans. This is my question. To what extent were they kind of anticipating that this might lead

into vast, complex international complications? Well, I think I think they knew that, but then I think

they knew that they were in a changing world. I mean, particularly the

foreign policy men, if you will, around McKinley, including Roosevelt as a junior guy.

But they knew the world was changing. This is one of McKinley’s McKinley’s. McKinley is seen as an

arch protectionist, for example, but he is sure that he is shot in Buffalo in 19 1 September

of 1981, one after giving a speech that basically says the world has changed and we must

embrace reciprocity if you lower your tariffs to the sale and importation of American goods in

your country. We should lower our tariffs and obstacles to trade with you

because you realize as the world is changing. So I think particularly since you look, he is the guy,

not Roosevelt. It’s it’s it’s McKinley with long the secretary of Navy

and Roosevelt, the assistant secretary of Navy who begin building the great American white fleet. They begin

building the modern American Navy. And why not? Because he would just felt we need to have a nice navy. He was thinking

in international terms, we live now in a global world. And our our sorry economic success

as a country depends upon our ability to sell things around the world. In order to do that, we must protect our

trade routes and make our influence known. Which is why I think he took away, even though complicated

lives for everybody who had to deal with one of the most pressing questions of trade in the eighteen

take the action and take Puerto Rico, because the question was, what do you do to keep

American influence in in our neighborhood? Michael Burger, Mr.

Rowe, you were among the three speaking Texan,

so I hope you in mind. And

begin in Havana Harbor, where the incident

of the May led to the United States

military action aggression, which punctuated

the extended tradition that began with POAGS deceptive moves

which laid the basis politically for the invasion of Mexico.

One could argue looking at consequences other than

shaped shaped influence and gave emphasis

to American aptitude, which also manifest itself in the 20th century

and even in the 21st century, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and also

the deception and misrepresentations that led us to invade

Iraq. Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Actually have these events. Well, first of

all. First of all, let’s let the pattern of deception represent. You said that you

said that once already. So I’ve got him. So first of all, I’d say that to Trent. It goes back

further than that, because I’m I’m doing some work on a third book and

I’m looking at the Louisiana Purchase. One of the reasons we get Louisiana is because we threaten the French

that if you don’t sell it to us, we may just take it. In fact,

in fact, literally the the on the on the 10th of April, 18 0 3,

Napoleon meets with his navy, his Navy secretary and his treasury secretary

and says, should should we take possession Louisiana or give it up? Because he has just gotten

word of a debate in Congress in which Senator Ross of Pennsylvania has basically said,

let’s let’s say here’s a resolution authorizing the president, take fifty thousand people and fifty thousand

volunteers and mobilize them. And he’s also gotten word from the

French charge d’affaires in in in Washington that that

there’s that by the time that they take possession of Louisiana. May actually be in the hands of a man

from Kentucky. So this this is this America is an expansionist

country. And so, yeah, there’ve been some moments. Now, I will take umbrage

at one thing. I do not think it was appropriate for you to launch such a vicious personal attack

on Senator Ted Kennedy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator John Kerry,

Senator Reid of Nevada, and others who voted in favor of the authorization

for the use of force. After looking at the intelligence and concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons

of mass destruction there who were not guilty of deception. They made a good faith effort to

look at the same intelligence that President George W. Bush looked at and they came to the same conclusion.

You may remember, for example, Senator Kennedy giving a speech at Georgetown University saying, of

course, I’ve looked at intelligence and Saddam has WMD, but I believe we ought to use diplomacy,

not force, in order to remove it. You may remember the speech given by John Kerry in which he used

language regarding the presence of nuclear materials and nuclear weapons programs

in Iraq. That was far beyond anything that the Bush administration said. You may remember the speech given

by Al Gore at the Commonwealth Club in the fall of 90 of 2002,

saying that Saddam had WMD and represented a serious threat, biological, chemical and nuclear

weapons. That represented a threat to the stability of the region and in unite in the interests of the United States. So

I would not accuse these people of making a good faith effort to look at the existing intelligence and saying that they were

guilty of deception and lied. Mr. That intelligence, if you will.

No, no, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t. Go read. Go read. Go read, if you

will, the read the report. Good. Well, finish. People

that you referred to did not read. Well then, then that’s good.

That’s really condemning him. Well, yes, that’s really condemning him. Speaking as

a Democrat. The way you speak as we speak. So am I. Sir,

I served my country for seven years. So don’t give me that line. We’re here to talk

about McKinley. You wouldn’t have a political argument to rehash Iraq. You and I can stay here afterwards and spend

hours talking about it. But but you’ve made your point. You think it was deception of misrepresentation?

I say that’s absolute bunk. Andrew Lindberg and I

say I

ask you, compare McKinley with his predecessor, Cleveland.

I have the impression from reading folks spoke about

McKinley that if you had to oversimplify and put them on a

spectrum from left to right, that McKinley would be to the left of Cleveland.

Could you comment? Well, that’s not uncommon during the Gilded Age for the for the Republican to be,

in our modern terms to the left of a Democrat, because the Democratic Party

during the Gilded Age is the party of limited government, low taxes, free trade,

the and. Well, and he’s in the minority of the Democratic Party. But by

the end of his term, this is the one this we’re going through a populist moment where the Democratic Party

is basically changed from being the hard money party of Jackson to being

a soft money party. And this happens it happens during Cleveland in large part because of the

of the crisis on the plains and the economic disruption the country goes through.

But yeah, look, things didn’t think about this. For example, McKinley is an ardent proponent in the 1880s

of federal protections for black rights in the South, for civil rights in the South.

He’s a he is a protectionist. He’s in favor of funding the government not by high taxes, but by high

tariffs. And when do we get to the end? When we get to 1892

and 1888. Grover Cleveland is a hard money man. Realistically,

until the 1896 campaign, McKinley has a very mixed record on currency. He

comes from a very competitive state with a lot of soft money, inflationary views going back to the civil

war. And so he is like he votes and he votes for soft money

measures throughout the 1870s and 80s. Though he is fundamentally, you know, his instinct

is I got to do politically cover my flank. I’m in a district that is highly competitive

and where the opinion is split. But when push comes to shove, he’s a hard

money man. That’s one other thing. Move quickly. I think the biggest

difference between the two men, it is their political skills.

Cleveland, there’s a brittleness to him. There’s a if you’re really into the era, read,

read the letter, read his letters. Alan Evans did did a collection of his extensive pleasure.

He is look, this guy is. Thank God they didn’t have Twitter back then because he is raging in private

in the White House about being stabbed in the back by his fellow Democrats. And he’s angry.

McKinley is a genial figure. Fact Reid once complained, he said, My enemies

always feel compelled to apologize to William before they call him names. And

McKinley was an adroit manager of people. And he had a he had

a very affable personality, but smart as hell and knew how to maneuver people. And

Cleveland, bless his soul, twice elected president nonconsecutive terms

was not that was not that able a politician.

The. We’ll be back there next. Right

now. I thought that was really amusing.

You know, I don’t know much about

it. He sells cars to

the Lisbon. Puzzled by McKinley, he’s

known for the McKinley tariff. You said a high predictions man tariff. And then with sugar

he had this khabab meat, fat and sugar for a long time. So this side, we know

that it was a huge supporter of McKinley. But there’s also the white issue, as can say a little bit more

about what explains this kind of carve out an exception that sugar was well oiled of the day

to nationalize of his trade. Well, remember, though, McKinley is is not the highest

protectionist around. He believes in relatively high tariffs in order to protect

that, what they call the home market, American producers and American working people.

But he votes against measures that he thinks are too punitive. His his mentor

is Pig Iron Kelly William Kelly, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. When he

comes into Congress and pig iron takes a a tariff bill and

blows it up and McKinley votes against it. Now what?

Why, sugar? Because McKinley’s view was we shouldn’t have tariffs on things that we

don’t produce or make in this country. And second of all, we ought not to

have tariffs on things that the ordinary working man or working woman depend upon. So he was put for putting

coffee and sugar and several other items like that on what was called the free list. So

there’d be no tariff paid on it. He has a much more nuanced view. I’m a free

trader. So, I mean, any protection sounds sort of goofy to me. But but he has

a very nuanced view. He he would preside over these committee hearings. And when he thought that that industries

were asking for more than they deserve to have, he say he would say, I’m not interested in what you want

to have. I’m interested in what you and what the whole market must have. So

he is a he’s got a nuanced view on it, which I think made him open to the idea of of

we’re a global economy and reciprocity when he comes into politics. The advocate

for reciprocity is James G. Blaine, the monumental liar from the state of Maine. He’s the he’s the guy

sort of is considered by Republican high tariff men as being as being untrustworthy

because he’s he’s in favor of reciprocity starting in the hemisphere

here. And then David Edwards and then Tom Happyand

talked about McKinley and Roosevelt in terms of continuity and change, which seems to be that there’s

any discernible tipping point between the two and certainly a generational shift. And

yet it’s a shift because of the events.

I wanted to know what what so 1981?

Well, we wouldn’t have been as heavily entertained

for the next seven years. But Mary makes a very good case,

I think, in his new book that the seeds of what we attribute to Roosevelt

trust busting, for example, laws to protect

food and so forth. Those have those start to happen under McKinley because again, McKinley is a reformer.

So remember, when McKinley dies, it’s hard for us to get this today because he’s an obscure

the 25th president United States. Who knows who he is when he dies. It is a moment

of national grief like the country has not seen since since Lincoln

and will not see again until Kennedy. Because remember, he comes into office and the country is in

a deep depression. And almost immediately springs out of the depression. So when he runs for reelection

in 92. He wins reelection by the largest number since Ulysses

S. Grant’s reelection in 1872 against the hapless

Greeley. And the country is at peace and prosperity and we’ve won

this short and popular war. And McKinley is a unifying force.

And so when he is shot in by a terrorist, incidentally, he is shot by an anarchist.

And when he when his body is conveyed to Washington, D.C., five hundred thousand

people lined the railroad tracks from Buffalo to Washington. When when the station

when the train comes into the station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, two to to re water

there. Thirty thousand people there jammed into in and around the station. So many people, the governor

of Pennsylvania cannot force his way through the crowd in order to pay his respects to Mrs. McKinley. And when

the train begins pulling out of the station, the entire crowd begins spontaneously singing patriotic

songs and hymns. He rolls into the buffalo. He rose and rolls into the Baltimore

train station. And for the last mile or two into the train station, people have

heaped floral tributes on the railroad tracks so that by the time the train pulls

into, the station is literally covered with flowers. A reporter writes, that is

when they pull out of Baltimore, the sun is setting any any. And he says that all along the tracks

from Baltimore to Washington, the entire way is lit by bonfires by the

farmers, most of them black, who are standing there soundlessly as the

train comes by. There are so many people who want to see him lie in state

in Washington that literally they extend the hours. But even then, when he is taken to the station,

was bodies taken to the station returned again. There are something like twenty or thirty thousand people still standing in line.

And the moment he’s late, he is taken home in an open car glass

car. So you can see the the coffin. And as he and 8E,

he’s taken overnight and literally, the reporters talk about how they pass

smelter and mind front and factory all along the way back to Kent,

Ohio. And all of them in the work in are standing there saluting their fallen chief.

He’s conveyed to the to the receiving vault in the Canton Cemetery

in the schoolchildren of Nashville, Tennessee, have have raised enough money to send a

train car load of sweetpea flowers to strew on the path into the into

the into the cemetery. So you have this picture of grizzled civil war veterans openly weeping

and stopping to pick up a a flower to put it into their into their lapel. The entire cabinet

is there in the receiving vault, is in front of a small ridge about 50

feet tall and about 400 or 500 yards long. And the entire ridge is

covered with floral tributes. The czar of Russia and the president of Chile. But most

of them are from like the miners of Lackawanna County. Sloot, our chief.

You know, the Croatian American Steel

Society. You know, I mean, it is just in me. I’ve got pictures of these. And you just can’t believe

how personal this all is. There’s one man who standing apart from the cabinet.

Because a cabinet, many of them are openly weeping, but Theodore Roosevelt doesn’t want to sit or stand

with the cabinet because he’s afraid his emotions will be overcome. His first pledges, I will retain

the cabinet and fulfill the policies of William McKinley.

I remember reading that in McKinley’s election worker

a day before the election workers. Lots of places found slips

in their pay envelopes, saying don’t bother to report for work unless

there. There were not widespread, but there were very clear statements by. But look

there there was a real fear among the working among among business owners that suddenly

they would be anarchy. I mean, remember, you take these two campaigns. One

is a unified McKinley says we’re all in this together. The prosperity of the country depends

upon labor and capital together. And he refused to pit them against each other.

Brian is running around the country in something the country has never seen this of. He runs the first.

He looks like a modern candidate. Well, he’s doing it on the train rather than flying around.

But he is giving some days 12 and 13 speeches and they are nasty.

He excoriates the bloodsuckers of Wall Street, a Lombard Street and the

money changers of the Rothschilds. And you know anybody? I mean,

he stands up in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the train station. He’s on his

way to New York City to give a speech in Madison Square Garden to accept formally the Democratic nomination.

And he says, I go into the enemy’s country. The entire campaign is still

down in that one phrase. It’s us versus them. And he is constantly

harping about how it’s those that don’t have versus those that have. And

as a result, you had business people who literally feared and remember, until September, it looks like he’s going to win.

You have you have people who basically are saying we lose this election. I’m going to take what I got and get

the heck out of here, you know, hole up as best I can and try and survive.

Tom Hartfield, I admit

I took the quiz after the the Normandy trip with Hatfield and I think I passed, but he’s never given me

my paper back. Yes, I did. Because

of your column in review. Well, that’s right. Yes. Yes, you did.

I never got to the airport there. Well. As I said, those them

God versus those who don’t know who you are.

I’m captivated by how captivated you are in this area,

given how you are so identified with American politics of our

country in early 21st century. What was it that captured your

imagination so much about the late 19th century? Well,

I say there is a stupid story behind that. I was teaching at the. I was teaching at the LBJ

school and the only Republican member, the faculty

and I had a half, which is true. And I had I was teaching an undergraduate class and

a joint appointment with the government department in the journalism department. And it had done so for

a couple of years. And the head of the government department, Jim Fishkin, said, hey,

you’re 40 something. We’ll put you in the p._h._d program and fast track you

because you got a lot of practical experience and we’ll do this for you. There’s only one minor thing, which

is you’ve got to get your B.A. first. So.

So I took the astronomy course.

I took my dad was a geologist, so I took the geology thing and I took the math course.

But I had to demonstrate I did fulfill the upper division writing requirement. And after running

a public affairs business for 18 years, there was no evidence whatsoever that I could string together

two sentences. Now, I was a little bit busy because this is 1996 and

sort of it’s becoming clear that Bush might if we don’t win the election, which it doesn’t look like we will,

that there might be something going on in the future. So I’m getting a little busy at this point. So I look in the course catalog

to find out, is there something that I can do without having to take a class? And I’m looking through the

history. And it was at 350 a seminar on historical source writing.

Three feet, three or 351. Anyway, I’ve no idea. This is never granted, but it sure sounded good.

It professor, do some research in the original source material, write a paper, get three hours

checklist for upper division writing requirement. So I walk into the department not knowing this is never

done and the woman behind the desk sort of looks at me suspiciously and I say,

here’s what I’m here to do. And she says, Well, you have to get a professor to agree to take you on. And so

I said, Well, who’s here? And she said, Well, there’s only one professor

here right now, Lewis Gould. I said, well, can I see him? And she said,

let me see. So she goes and talks to Gould, who had sort of vague knowledge of who I was. So he

sort of intrigue. He says, what do you want to. What are you interested in writing about? I said, I’m interested in Theodore Roosevelt, 1895.

How does this guy pull it off? Little do I know. Gould is the leading historian of the Gilded Age.

This is this is like his like his alley. So he says, I’ll take you on.

He says, but you got to do one thing. You gotta read the McKinley papers because history gets McKinley

wrong. So I’m investigating Theodore Roosevelt, but I’m reading the McKinley

papers. And by God, there is an amazingly smart operator right there, adroit.

Different, unusual. And now I can. You know, I sort of fell in love with him

and. But all because I wanted to get the upper division writing requirement, which

I did get, incidentally, but now without the normal U.T. So

at the end of the semester, I didn’t have it done because I was a little occupied in the fall of 90 of 96.

So Gould says, don’t worry. Turn it into the spring. So I turn it in the spring, by which time?

It has now been removed from the catalog. So I’m like, [INAUDIBLE]. I got three

hours, but I didn’t fulfill the upper division ready requirement. So the next fall,

they put it back in the catalog. So I go to the undergraduate student advising office and

say, I did this. Can I please get the checkmark? No, no. You have to take it over again.

This guy knew who I was. He was very pointed in his comments about who I was.

So he wasn’t going to give me any. So I went back and did it again and did

a seminar, a story of sorts. Right. I am the world’s leading expert on the 1940

Willkie presidential campaign for the convention. Convention plans. So right

here, I’d be happy to give you all of that, too. But it took me two times to

get to get the upper division writing requirement. Fortunately, you could take 3:51 twice. Yeah.

It’s your opinion at both. As a student of the Gilded Age and as a modern strategist,

what do you people compared our own age to the first Gilded Age? And as you see

revelations about Facebook, you see that groundswell of

movement against concentrated forms of economic power, particularly in Asia.

And I guess my question to you is a moderate political strategist, it seen that most of that rhetoric is

from the left side of the Democratic Party. Is there a middle ground

involved? Much to see? Middle ground? Yeah, well,

not to get this. Now we’re getting out into wacky ville. We’re going through a populist moment,

just like they were going through a populist moment back then. But populism is not a

populism is more a method of of acting, that it is a concrete

philosophy. And there is a both there economic. There is a left

form of populism and a right form of populism, both of whom share something in common. And that is that the

relationship between the state and the individual has gotten seriously warped and needs to be revisited.

And the economic populism of the left is that the little man is getting screwed. The big man’s get it all.

And you’ve got to redo the relationship between the state and the individual in order to let the little man get his fair share.

But there’s also a cultural form of populism, which is to say things are

changing so fast that the things that you hold dear and true, the values that you hold

are are being just are being attacked or even disappearing. And we saw that

in the 2016 presidential campaign where clearly Trump

was making an appeal towards the forgotten man, towards the values, your values, respect

for law and order, respect for the military, respect for law enforcement, respect for hard work. These

things were being undervalued. What’s interesting is in 1896, we see in Bryan’s

campaign a healthy dose of that cultural populism in the form

of agrarianism. He is he is opposed to the modern to the modern industrial

economy. In fact, when he gives his famous cross a gold speech, this pops out.

But there’s a cultural element to his populism in in

in it as well as economic. Well, let me right here.

See here.

Give me just a second here. Oh, he identified free silver

as rural and small town America, saying the populated east favorite gold, but those great cities

rest upon these broad and fertile plains. Burn down your cities and leave our farms

and your cities will spring up again as if by magic, but destroy our farms and the grass will grow

in the streets of every city in the country. So there’s a cultural populism that’s evident in

questions?

Why do you think so? Culturally.

You know, nobody can compete on this for attention like Theodore.

He needed it. He wanted it. He got it. McKinley isn’t that kind of a person.

Think about this. He is recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor and

refuses to have the application press saying I was only doing my duty.

He’s a very modest person and a modest personality, but it made him a very capable leader. He is

enormously respected when he is in Congress and achieves things that were not

thought to be achievable by dint of strategy and personal demeanor and so

forth. But look who can who can stand on that stage and not be outshined by Theodore Roosevelt.

And remember, when we win the 20 years or 30 years after he died, the progressive historians

dominated the 1920s and 30s when it came to writing history. And their goal was the

you know, they were captivated by the bombastic, pugilistic Mr. Roosevelt.

McKinley was, you know. Not as hot in

that recent wireframe, McCamley.

You always want to be called major. You said it by the time he said

the other title thrust on him, but he earned it. I said, I don’t know about those others, but I know I

earned that one. And he did. Enters the war as a private 18 years old.

He and the men and men of the PLO, the teenagers of the Polan, Ohio militia show up at Camp

Jackson outside of Columbus in April of 1861 and are told, boys,

we’ve got to do. We got the volunteer volunteer grant. I mean, the Lincoln is called over. I think a seventy

five thousand volunteers are our quota of volunteers has been filled. You have two

choices. Go home or sign up for three years or the duration,

whichever is longer and almost to a man. The teenagers of the of the

polar militia joined up. McKinley gets his first battlefield promotion

on the bloodiest day of the Civil War, the Battle of Antietam. He’s a very meticulous, well organized guy

with a lot of integrity. So he’s made a commissary sergeant. So he is comfortably behind the front lines

when at 2 a.m. the 23rd, Ohio goes into battle and with orders to take the Burnside Bridge.

Some of your civil war buffs may remember the great Stone Bridge. He’s watching comfortably

behind the lines when they go into battle at 2 p.m., they finally taken the bridge with terrific

casualties and are now sheltered underneath a bluff from the Confederate troops. And McKinley

McKinley’s worried about his comrades because they have not had anything to eat or drink since the night before. So

he finds a wagon, gets a Voll, it gets a straggler to help him load tins

of coffee and boiled meat, whatever that is, and hardtack and fills up the wagon

and begins riding towards the front lines through a wooded area. Officer comics’ comes upon him and says,

What are you doing? He says, I’m going to replant supply the men of the 23rd. The officer says, No, you’re not.

He said, In order to do that, you’ll have to ride across five hundred yards of open field. And the

only thing in that open field are dead men. Turn the wagon around. McKinley says, I will,

but I need to go forward a little bit further because it’s not wide enough for me to turn the wagon around. Satisfied

the officer rides off. McKinley has no intention to turn around, rides further to the front lines,

comes to the edge of the force. An officer with several of his aides comes rattling up and the same conversation

takes place. And he orders McKinley directly. Turn around and go back. Do not proceed any further.

McKinley Wright waits until he rides off, and when he does whips the mules or horses. There’s a

big debate on whether it’s horses or mules. I’m a horse man, but whips the mules,

comes roaring out of the tree line and the Confederates can’t believe it. Who is the

idiot in the wagon rolling across five hundred yards of open turf and they open up

the entire ridge line, opens up artillery. Musket, fire. Bullets are

flying. A cannon shell takes off the back of the wagon. But somehow or another McKinley makes

it through this firestorm, rolls across the bridge and is a close friend and later is

a tent mate. Russell Hastings. Later, a general, said the men of the twenty third stood as one and cheered,

and McKinley makes his way through the crowd, giving out coffee. One one man says to him,

God bless you, lad, when he gets probably the last cup of coffee you had on this earth. And McKinley says

it was the greatest thanks you could ever receive. He’s made a lieutenant, second lieutenant as a result of this.

At the battle occurrence town in 1864, he’s turned into a bright young aide to

the brigade commander. And early in the morning, Jubal, early troops break out of the trees

in a surprise attack on the union left and begin to crumple the front line of the union left. And the brigade

commander orders the five regiments under his control to withdraw. And before it’s too late, he wants to get him out

of there while he could still retreat in good order. And the word gets to three to four

of the units. But it doesn’t get to the thirteenth West Virginia on the extreme right of the union line.

And they’re in an orchard. They can’t see the advancing confederates. They’re bout ready to be cut off and shot to

pieces. And the brigade commander doesn’t want know what to do. He looks around spots. McKinley says, ride

to the men of the 13th and get them out of there. This requires as the union line is collapsing.

For McKinley to ride in on an active battlefield in front of the union line ever closer to the Confederates

in order to get to the thirteenth, Hastings said We thought it was a suicide

mission and they watched as he mounted his horse and began to ride. And the battlefield is like

a battlefield, and they are waiting for him to fall and

a shell goes off right next to his horse. Big blast in Hastings

said. We thought he was gone, but he wrote later, out of the crowd of gray smoke came the small brown

horse with the erect horseman. Some air another McKinley makes it through to the 13th West Virginia. The commander

of the 13th, West Virginia. Sort of startled that this is all happening, he says. Can we at least give him a round?

They form up, walk out of the orchard, and lay a barrage into

the advancing confederates, decimating the ranks and retire in good order. McKinley rides behind the union lines,

walks into his brigade commander’s tent. The brigade commander turns around, takes one look at him, turns white.

And Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes says, My God, I never expected to see you in this life

again. The twenty third Ohio had two future presidents and one future Supreme Court justice

in its ranks.