{"id":46,"date":"2018-04-13T20:14:29","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T20:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/?post_type=podcast&p=46"},"modified":"2021-01-20T21:22:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T21:22:36","slug":"worldwide-consequences-of-american-expansion-in-1898-karl-rove","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/podcast\/worldwide-consequences-of-american-expansion-in-1898-karl-rove\/","title":{"rendered":"Worldwide Consequences of American Expansion in 1898 – Karl Rove"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Karl Rove\u2019s recent book, The Triumph of William McKinley, deals with the election of 1896 and its consequences. His lecture will expand on the results of the 1898 war with Spain: the annexation of the Philippines and Hawaii in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean as well as Cuba as a protectorate of sorts. To what extent did American political leaders take into account the reaction of the other European powers, above all the British, to these moves toward acquiring an empire? Karl Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration. He is usually credited with the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of Bush as well as the presidential wins in 2000 and 2004. Bush has referred to Rove as the \u201carchitect.\u201d After the publication of The Triumph of William McKinley, the UT historian H.W. Brands referred to it as \u201cpolitical history at its most engaging.\u201d Rove lives in Austin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karl Rove\u2019s recent book, The Triumph of William McKinley, deals with the election of 1896 and its consequences. His lecture will expand on the results of the 1898 war with Spain: the annexation of the Philippines and Hawaii in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean as well as Cuba as a protectorate of […]","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/04\/18-04-13-BSLS.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"36.76M","filesize_raw":"38545673","date_recorded":"13-04-2018","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[25,7,31,22,28,27,29,8,30],"categories":[],"series":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-46","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","5":"tag-25","6":"tag-british","7":"tag-caribbean","8":"tag-empire","9":"tag-karl","10":"tag-rove","11":"tag-spain","12":"tag-studies","13":"tag-william-mckinley","14":"series-bsls","15":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":949,"post_author":"10","post_date":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_date_gmt":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_content":"\n

Wm. Roger Louis is head of the British Studies Lecture Series. He is an American historian and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin<\/a>. Louis is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire<\/a><\/em>, a former president of the American Historical Association<\/a> (AHA), a former chairman of the U.S. Department of State's Historical Advisory Committee, and a founding director of the AHA's National History Center in Washington, D. C.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Wm. Roger Louis","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"wm-roger-louis","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_modified_gmt":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/?post_type=speaker&p=949","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":798,"post_author":"40","post_date":"2020-06-23 19:11:43","post_date_gmt":"2020-06-23 19:11:43","post_content":"\n

Karl Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration. He is usually credited with the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of Bush as well as the presidential wins in 2000 and 2004. Bush has referred to Rove as the \u201carchitect.\u201d After the publication of The Triumph of William McKinley, the UT historian H.W. Brands referred to it as \u201cpolitical history at its most engaging.\u201d Rove lives in Austin.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Karl Rove","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"karl-rove","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-06-23 19:11:43","post_modified_gmt":"2020-06-23 19:11:43","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/?post_type=speaker&p=798","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":"

We are very glad to have Karl Rove with us this afternoon. A few people ask
\nme. Karl Rove speaking to British studies, isn’t that a line? These
\nare people who haven’t read this excellent book. I’m familiar with it.
\nAnd as a consequence of 1898, there were a lot of international responses,
\nnot least were the British. We can pursue this. So I will introduce
\nMr. Rove and George Scott. Christian will then introduce the speaker
\nand we’ll go from there. My pleasure. It’s a really great
\npleasure to be in this kind of distinguished company today. And I was
\nthinking about last night. What am I how how do I introduce Karl Rove? Because he’s so well-known, not
\nonly in the Austin community, but all over the world, really.
\nAnd I think the way I’m going to do it is to just
\nlet you know something about him. He and my father, George Christian, and also my mother,
\nJoanne Christian, were very fond of Karl. And I think they were very close
\nfriends. And I thought what would bring together kind of a sort
\nof old conservative Democrat who’d been in Texas politics for 30 or some odd years
\nand and work for governors and for President Johnson, you know, together with a kind of young rising
\nstar in the GOP. Political consulting world who really came
\ndown here to build the Republican Party, which really had not existed
\naround here since Reconstruction. And Karl, I think in some ways is the
\narchitect, you know, of the two party system in Texas, certainly in my
\nexperience. And I think what brought them together was they both
\nwere voracious and. Ah. Karl is still a voracious reader
\nof history. And they both looked at things from an historical perspective.
\nAnd I think they had a deep mutual regard and respect for each other
\nbased on, you know, how much it meant to them to be
\nable to kind of bridge their political gap and and really discuss
\nthe future of our country and our state in constructive
\nboys and found ways certainly to work across
\nparty lines. And I think, you know, one of my dad’s blast,
\nI think memories was that was what kind of friendship he was able to have with with Karl
\nand certainly with President Bush. And I will never forget you for that
\nand appreciate that. And with that, I will introduce Karl Rove.
\nThanks, George Scott. There’s a simpler explanation, I loved your man. Oh, man, I loved him.
\nHe knew when I came to Austin, they hunted. Republicans were dogs and
\nI was the only Republican political consultant in Austin. And in nineteen eighty seven,
\nyour dad was working on a constitutional amendment campaign, having to do with federal
\nreimbursement of highway funds, being dedicated to highways rather than being stolen by the legislature
\nfor other purposes. And your dad said to Tom
\nJohnson, who just retired after 52 years as the head of the highway contractors, said to Tom,
\nwe need this a bipartisan effort. We need to get a Republican political consultant. There’s a young one here in Austin.
\nI think you do a good job. And that’s our friendship began. But I loved your old man, and
\nI went to pay my respects as he was in his final days to his office and expected to be
\nthere maybe 10 or 15 minutes and left two hours later after laughing harder than I’ve left
\nalmost any other time in my life. Because your dad got off telling stories, particularly about
\nLyndon Johnson, and some of you may remember Ed Clark.
\nSo tiny little guy wore those old fashioned collars, had the stick pin,
\nand your dad told me a story about Johnson and Ed Clark and a group of
\nJohnson’s cronies went on a campaign trip. I think in 52 and they drove over to CALDWELL,
\nactually, they drove it over over to someplace near Bryan College Station on the way back. Johnson said, we’re gonna stop.
\nAnd CALDWELL. I know a great place. It has the best chili in Texas. So they drove to the wrong
\nside of town and went of this Dungy dirty little hole in the wall. And Johnson
\nordered up around the chili. And all of his aides and lieutenants started to
\neat the chili. And it was the god awful hot stuff they had ever tasted in their life. Johnson
\nwas eating it with great relish. And when he finished eating Hizbollah, Chili looked around at his compatriots, all of whom were sweating
\nand bright faced and struggling to finish their bowls. Chili and Johnson ordered up another round
\nof bowls of chili for everybody. And Mr. Clark, as you remember, had a high squeaky
\nvoice. Is it? And your dad your dad had a fantastic imitation of Bestor,
\nClark said. Lynn. I have traveled the dusty highways of Texas with you.
\nI have led my tears fall on the faces of dead men. I did not know. I have danced with ugly
\nwomen for you. But I’ll be damned if I’m having another bowl of that jelly.
\nOK. So the triumph of William McKinley
\nhad to tell you. But there’s not much Britain in here. Of course, over the course
\nof the Gilded Age, one of the big issues is protection. And with Britain being a
\nthe leading free trade country in the world, the Republican Party tended to make
\nBritain and John Bull a campaign theme.
\nBut it was frankly secondary to the real purpose, which was to attract the Irish vote in the battleground
\nstate of New York. Back in that era, there were some
\nfamiliar battleground states. Ohio was a battleground there. That’s why virtually every Republican ticket
\nhad a or Ohio and for president or vise president on it in Indiana.
\nBut the big the big the big bloc of battleground states, the ones that were up for
\ngrabs and each and every election were Connecticut, New Jersey, to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania
\nand New York, the biggest state in the union. So the Republicans would beat up on
\nJohn Bull not only for the value of demonstrated, they were in favor of protecting the
\npaychecks of American working people, but also in order to attract the Irish vote.
\nThere is the issue of protection becomes a less dominant issue
\nin the 1896 campaign now because McKinley wants it to be. He wants the entire election to be fought
\nover it. But he very early on in the campaign loses control of the issue agenda
\nto a 36 year old punk from Nebraska, failed two term
\ncongressman who is in his own mind thinks he’s gonna be a presidential
\ncandidate, but nobody else thinks he’s going to be a presidential candidate. In fact, he becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party
\nonly after giving a speech that is itself the result of seven accidents,
\nseven accidents. Bring William Jennings Bryan into the moment to stand up in front of 20000 people
\nand give the cross of gold speech at the end of a two hour long debate on the currency plank of the Democratic
\nplatform. People are literally bored and leaving when he stands up to speak, but he speaks
\nand energizes the crowd. And the next day is nominated the Democratic nominee for president,
\neven though at the time of him speaking, nobody thinks he’s a candidate. In fact, the night before
\nhe speaks, he has dinner and arrest. In downtown Chicago, with his wife and his
\nclose adviser, a Texan named Rosser, who is the superintendent of the state
\ninsane asylum and and there are men
\nparading up and down in front of the doors of the restaurant. The windows of the restaurant chanting
\nthe names of the front runners. Governor boys of Iowa and
\nthe real front runner, Richard Park Bland of missoura. And Brian leans over and says to his
\nwife and his close friend. These men don’t know it. But tomorrow night they’ll be chanting
\nmy name. And she says, Well, Mr.
\nRosser, do you think. Mr. Mr Bryan has a real chance of winning. And before Rosser
\ncan answer. Brian says basically, take
\nit to the bank. You can sleep soundly tonight, tomorrow by by this time, the day after tomorrow,
\nI will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. And literally, Rosser thinks that he’s got another patient for the state and says
\nthere is a minor reference in and I didn’t get to put it to editors. Damn them.
\nThey cut out one of the fun little stories in the book. There is this failed
\npolitician, desperate, ambitious young man. He ran for mayor of
\nNew York City and came in third. And he
\nis. He’s opposed by the by the Republican machine in New York.
\nThis is an era of great political machines in the Republican machines are led by the easy
\nboss, Senator Thomas. Call your plan of New York and he hates
\nthis young man. And is God never gonna allow him D.B. slated for office? And
\nincidentally, the easy boss, just everybody needs to have a nickname in this area. Everybody has a nickname.
\nHis one of his chief lieutenants is the is the blonde boss. Congressman William
\nJ. Larmer is a 34 year old congressman, 32 year old congressman in Illinois
\nwho who controls the Cook County Republican machine with 10000 patronage jobs
\nat his disposal. Anyway, there there’s this failed politician and he’s desperate to resurrect
\nhis political career. And he decides the only way to do so is to attach himself to a political candidate
\nwho’s gonna get elected president and then accompany him to Washington. And so this young man
\nsupports the Republican frontrunner. Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine, the speaker of the House
\nwho’s about six foot three tall, inches tall, 300 pounds, who looks like a bowling pin with a walrus
\nmustache painted on it. And the young man works hard on behalf of
\nhis candidate, but his candidate comes up short. And afterwards, he writes a letter
\nto his sister in which he says, we’ve got a good platform and saying
\nLewis and McKinley is a good man, but he is weak. And I worry about him in a
\nmoment of crisis for our country. Two days later, he’s riding one of McKinley’s closest personal friends, saying
\nwe must do everything we can to elect McKinley. And when he gets elected, you must be
\nthe secretary of the treasury, or at least the minister of France. And my ambitions, such as they
\nare, can go by the wayside, which was his way of saying, I need your help. And he spends the
\nnext five months weaseling his way into the campaign, shows up his could,
\ntaken a vacation. So he shows up at the Chicago headquarters on his way to his vacation and
\ncounsels with the 32 year old campaign manager of the McKinley campaign, a man you’ve never heard
\nof but should have, and writes letters to all of his friends about what he’s hearing
\nand what advice he’s giving when Mark Hanna, McKinley’s close personal friend and money raiser,
\nshows up in New York. He has dinner with him the first night, arranges to have dinner and says, here’s
\nhow you can upload approach. Boss Platt, he doesn’t like you and he doesn’t like me. But here’s how to handle
\nthe man. And you need to handle him because otherwise you’re gonna lose this battleground state.
\nA friend of his is invited to go on a campaign speaking tour in upstate New York. A U.S. senator.
\nAnd he writes his friend and says the young man and says, you need to join me on a campaign swing.
\nAnd don’t give me all these excuses. This is really important not knowing that his friend is
\ndesperately looking for a chance to shine on the campaign trail. So the two men go on a five
\nday speaking tour through upstate New York and.
\nThe U.S. senator doesn’t grab the headlines because he gets up and gives a thoughtful speech about the necessity
\nof sound protection laws and sound money currency. And here are the deep differences between
\nthe two parties in his colleague. The failed politician gets up and beats the crap out of William Jennings
\nBryan, saying the most vicious and nasty and ugly things you can ever imagine. And of course, the newspapers
\nwrite him up as the headline at the end of their five day tour. We’re gonna go visit
\nthe major, Major McKinley in Canton, Ohio. And one of their friends, John Hay, writes
\na mutual friend, Henry Adams, and says H and T have gone to Canton to bare their tummies
\nand commit Harry Carey in front of the major. McKinley invited me to join the crowd. But it
\ndid to watch the spectacle. But I didn’t want to join the crowd ruining his lawn.
\nSo the young man goes to Canton, pays his respects to McKinley,
\nwho doesn’t like him. And but something happens in McKinley’s. People say, well, you
\ngo on a speaking tour through Illinois, a battleground state, and Michigan, a battleground
\nstate, and trail William Jennings Bryan during the course of your of his tour there. And do
\nwhat you did in upstate New York. So the young man goes to Chicago and gives a speech
\nin front of twenty three thousand college students. The College Republican Assembly
\nback then, the college and virtually every college campus was dominated by Republicans. Yale
\nvoted 96 percent for McKinley in the in the student straw poll that year.
\nIn fact, the the Prohibition Party almost got as many votes on the Yale campus
\nas did the silver Democrats. But going to show that college campuses really have changed, the drunks
\nwould carry the vote today. But it gets up and gives a speech called
\ncalled the Age of the demagog and proceeds to kick the holy
\ncrap out of William Jennings Bryan in front of these college kids. But he’s interrupted by a
\nBrit. There is a fat, fanatical British silver money man
\nnamed Morgan Freeman. And it gets up and proceeds to heckle
\nthe Republican speaker during the course of his speech. And afterwards, the speaker writes a letter
\nto his friend, he says.
\nJust a line to tell you about my Western trip first and least important as to myself.
\nI made a success of it and got in good form and spoke to immense audiences who always listened attentively
\nand sometimes in Chicago, in Detroit were mad with enthusiasm. The only serious
\ninterruption I had was, funnily enough, by Morton Frequent in Chicago. After a little sparring,
\nI used him up so that he left the hall. Theodore Roosevelt.
\nSo the two men had been friends in Morton, had taken his inheritance,
\nand bought a bunch of North Dakota cattle land. And, like Roosevelt, lost virtually all of those investment in the
\ncattle and cattle country during a terrible winter in which the herds on the North Plains were
\ndecimated. So he was a bye medalist and spent the campaign in them in America trying to
\nencourage the election of William Jennings Bryan. But the but the young man who is his friend,
\nTheodore Roosevelt, used him up and made him so angry, left the hall. Actually,
\nthe news reports differ, but one Chicago newspaper said it was the police that removed him
\nfrom the audience, not himself. Anyway, I don’t know what else you want me to say about this. Maybe Bill
\nhas some questions or you might have some questions. I can give you a hell of a stemwinder on the book. It’s
\na damn good read. It’s got sex and violence
\nand backstabbing and betrayal and really cool nicknames and
\ntwists and turns worthy of a cooked up Hollywood screenwriter. And it’s an important election.
\nWe might have some political science majors here who studied the election. It’s one of the considered
\nby V.O. Key one. Yep. Have you studied it? Yeah. There we go.
\nExcellent. Go ahead. I’m curious, though, when during the election
\nit seems that he didn’t really have a lot to say about or when you asked about it.
\nConsidering my options like that, Cleveland seemed pretty optimistic.
\nThat’s the worst
\nposition. Well, McKinley is chairman, and we can tell
\nby looking at McKinley’s past, McKinley is twice the chairman of the Resolutions Committee at the Republican
\nNational Convention, and ironically enough, led in part by the son of of
\nUlysses S. Grant, Frederick Dent Grant. The Republican Party in the 1870s and 80s
\nbecomes huge enthusiasts of Cuban liberation, a free Cuba. In fact, that the 1880
\nof other states and then of the of the country, major countries around the world.
\nAnd the most prominent place over the podium is given to the flag of a free Cuba.
\nSo my sense is that he was he viewed he was not an imperialist.
\nHe didn’t. He didn’t. He was. He was reelected. In fact, he gives a incredible speech.
\nI read a lot of his speeches and they’re very formulaic. But there’s one speech in particular that is deeply
\nspoken from the heart, which is a speech he gives on October 9th to a group of 2000 Confederate
\nveterans. And he says, if we were ever forced to fight again and God forbid that we shall,
\nwe shall do so under we shall do so as brothers under a common flag. So he
\nthis guy spent four years in war, in the civil war. He begins as a private. He ends as a major.
\nHe survives three. He has three battlefield promotions for unbelievable
\nvalor. He survives two suicide missions. He says many of his friends and comrades
\nshot and killed. And he isn’t. And he is forever after a gentle soul who wants to avoid
\nwar. So he was not a war monger looking for a confrontation with Cuba. The sense
\nas it was, is forced upon him. My book doesn’t deal with this as much. But Robert Mary has a wonderful
\nnew biography of McKinley well-worth reading that deals with his. Could you go ahead and say a few more words
\nabout the war in 1898 against Spain and the consequences of our Pacific? Well,
\nI mean, do you see them today? We take Cuba, we take the Philippines.
\nWe take Puerto Rico. We have previously annexed Hawaii. We give
\nup Cuba as quickly as possible. The goal was to give up the Philippines
\nas soon as possible as well. McKinley doesn’t live long enough. My sense is McKinley would have found a way
\nto give up the Philippines a lot longer, a lot earlier than subsequent presidents did.
\nBut because McKinley’s view is we got plenty to say grace over, we want we want Puerto Rico
\nbecause Puerto Rico is important for our for our naval power in the Caribbean and
\nthe windward. Remember, at this point, they’re still thinking a lot about the age of sail
\nand why Haiti and Puerto Rico were important was because the currents and
\nthe wind brought sailing vessels naturally into the Caribbean close to those two islands. So
\nto protect our interests and the. Libyan Americans had for 20 or 30 years
\nthought about having a major coaling station some place in the in the Caribbean
\nand then and then Hawaii was like the Gibralter of the Pacific.
\nAnd there had been an attempt to annex it under Cleveland, which had come to naught.
\nBut McKinley was receptive to it, and the island had been in turmoil for a
\nnumber of years because of the disagreement between the those that wanted annexation to the United States
\nand those that wanted to maintain their independence. Any controversy over taking Guantanamo
\nin Cuba? Well, Guantanamo comes later after after McKinley because we we
\ntake Cuba and then its subsequent presidents who decide we want to have a major installation on the south
\nside of Cuba. Was there much of a political controversy over that? We did
\nnot much. I mean, in fact, there’s there’s more. Remember, the South has had
\nand I’d be interested in Bill’s reaction to this. My theory is the South. I mean, from the early
\npart of the eighteen hundreds to filibuster’s wanted to take Cuba because they saw Cuba as a natural extension of
\nthe slave power. And so their attitude was, we want Cuba because that will be a fertile place for us to have
\nsugar plantations, cotton plantations and so forth. So there again was a sort of an inbred attitude
\nof expansionism. Cuba naturally belongs to America and Cuba ought to be in the American orbit.
\nBut but McKinley was not of that mindset. His mindset was
\nit ought to be independent, free. Let’s ask Bill Burns to say a few words at this point was on
\nthat subject. I mean, I’d like Karl to address this. You’ve shown the cooperation
\namid a certain kind of friction between McKinley and Roosevelt. Did McKinley have any idea
\nwhen he offered Roosevelt the position of assistant Navy secretary that he was basically handing
\nover the Republican Party to this new generation because he’s the last of the civil war officers is
\npresent. They’ve all presidents of all been in commanding positions in civil war until then. And now here’s this.
\nThis guy who was born two years before the beginning of the civil war. So was there a feeling that the
\ntorch is being passed, especially when he is brought onto the ticket in nineteen hundred? Yeah,
\nmy theory is yes, that this is deliberate. One of the I stumbled on to McKinley because I was
\ninterested in Roosevelt. I was interested in how Roosevelt went from 1895 when his political
\ncareer is at an end. He’s done. He’s finished. He is he is a young man,
\nbut he is on the outs. He’s lost the mayorship. He has his reputation
\nis shattered. He’s not going to be slighted by the party. It’s at an end. So how does he end up
\nin 1897 as the assistant secretary of the Navy? I mentioned
\nthe letter to Bamby Roosevelt’s sister. The letter that he followed with was a letter
\nto Charles Bellamy. I’m sorry, Bellamy Steuer, who is a congressman from
\nCincinnati, a Catholic and a friend of McKinley’s. Very rare to
\nhave a Catholic Republican congressman in the 1880s and 1890s, McKinley is the first Republican
\npresidential candidate to be endorsed by a member of the Catholic hierarchy. After he takes on the largest
\npressure group in America in the 1880s, in the 1890s called the American Protective Association,
\nwhich is a Verilli anti-Catholic group, when he runs for reelection, he’s won election.
\nOhio is a very competitive state, just like it was just like it is today. He wins election as
\ngovernor of Ohio by twenty one thousand votes. And when it goes to run for reelection,
\nthe the AP, which has something like 80 thousand members in Ohio,
\ntells him that he must fire Catholic prison workers and he refuses. And they and
\nthey oppose his reelection and he wins by eighty thousand votes. So
\nhe’s a modernizer, though, and he sees that the Republican Party, that his generation
\nis reaching their end and he doesn’t like the generation that immediately followed them. The generation
\nof the 18, 70s and the early 1880s, which had come to dominance because these were machine
\nmen. These were men who were boodle men. Then graft that he thought that the politics of that
\nera is was corrupt. So in the 1896 campaign, his campaign
\nis run by a thirty two year old kid. McKinley meets him in
\nschool in Cincinnati and then lit out for the plains to make his living as a frontier lawyer in Lincoln,
\nNebraska. The kid offices in the same small office building as
\nanother young lawyer. In fact, the two men are members of a of a men’s debate club
\nand the young lawyers a couple years older than four or five years older him. His name is William Jennings Bryan.
\nAnd the young kid is a reform minded Republican. And he shows up in McKinley’s office in
\nColumbus and says, if you run for president, I’m going to be for you. McKinley shows up in Nebraska,
\nwas a battleground state in the fall of 1870 of 1894. And the kid reports
\nto him that he’s organized Nebraska on his behalf and the Dakotas and is working on some contacts
\nin Montana. McKinley’s impressed with the kid. So he says to him, says to himself, I want the kid involved.
\nThe kid says, I made some money in a bank deal and some real estate and has decided
\nhe’s gonna leave Lincoln and go to Chicago and become an entrepreneur. His idea is he’s going to buy
\ngas, utilities and knit them together. Back then, gas utilities served a very small area
\nand there were a lot of them. And his idea was, I’m going to buy these, knit them together, get economies
\nof scale and make a bunch of money. And so he moves to Illinois in January of eighteen ninety five.
\nAnd in Illinois is going to be the critical battleground in the Republican presidential nomination sweepstakes.
\nFact one of McKinley’s lieutenants calls it the Gettysburg of the contest. So what is McKinley
\ndo? He picks the kid who has just moved to Chicago and says, you’re the commander of my campaign
\nin Illinois. The kid has two lieutenants who are civil war generals
\nwho are 20 or 30 years his his his superiors. And they take they they fall in
\nlove with the kid and take to calling him the general because he’s so well-organized and so meticulous.
\nAnd they they’re so respectable is leadership. They become quite fond of him. And he has another lieutenant who’s
\na street car conductor and a leader of the young Republicans. And the four of them organize
\nthe state of Illinois and in and in spring of 1896, deal a devastating
\nblow to the machine, to the blonde boss and his lieutenants
\nand win the state Republican get mentioned by better than 2 to 1 and end the Republican election sweepstakes
\nto the nomination sweepstakes. The kid is at this point thirty one years old. And McKinley
\nsays to him, I want you to run my fall campaign. And so Charles G. Dawes goes
\nto Chicago and runs the fall campaign. When McKinley gets elected,
\nDawes has made the Comptroller of the Currency at the age of 32 and commanded the nation’s entire banking
\nsystem. He becomes the first director of the very first bureau, the budget under
\nWarren G. Harding Vise President, the United States under Calvin Coolidge, ambassador to Great
\nBritain, first head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the second American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
\nBut 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
\nbe for McKinley, had an eye for talent. And the reason he goes with with Roosevelt.
\nRoosevelt writes a letter after he writes a sister, writes that letter to Steuer
\nand then gets story or more importantly, Mrs. Storya to lobby their close friend William
\nMcKinley on his behalf. He invites them to to Oyster Bay and takes Mrs.
\nStorya out of Long Island Sound and Roeser around it, pouring out his heart. My career
\nis at an end. The only way that I can resurrected is if McKinley gives me a Gwynn’s
\nand gives me a post. But he doesn’t like me, but he loves you. She later wrote that he he rode
\nlike he spoke spasmodically. So she’s scared to death. Azeez Reutter
\naround Long Island Sound pouring out his heart at the end of the campaign. They go to they go to
\nMcKinley and say, you know, he gave you a good service. He did
\nwhat you wanted on the campaign trail. He gave Hannah good advice. He gave you good advice, played a big role
\nin getting you to get the right message on the monetary question, the currency question, which he did
\ngive him a chance. He doesn’t want to be in the cabinet. He wants a new job that’s never been created. He wants
\nto be the assistant secretary of Navy. Nobody’s ever had the job. It’s really not that important to resurrect his
\ncareer. You owe it to him. He’s a kind of young man you want to want to do. And McKinley says, OK, I’ll give
\nit to him. But I do not trust your young man, Roosevelt. He’s too pugnacious. But
\nI think it’s deliberate. I think he is literally going. There is one guy. There is a guy from named Pratt from
\nfrom Wisconsin. He is the he is the influence peddler par excellence
\nin Wisconsin. He represents the railroads and the timber companies. He represents
\nthe big food purchasers of the commodity companies. He literally is
\nhe owns the street car company in Milwaukee. He’s made so much money as a lobbyist.
\nAnd at the end of the campaign, he goes to any devotes the entire campaign fall at the spring and fall
\nto help him. McKinley’s has got a smart nose. He says that guy’s going to win. Attach myself to him.
\nHe spends the entire fall, the entire summer, the entire fall, working full time for McKinley, doing
\neverything that what could be asked as a member of the Republican Executive Committee at the end of the campaign, he goes
\nto McKinley and we don’t know what he asked for, but he asked for something in the cabinet and McKinley
\npassed him over. Why? Because he didn’t want that kind of influence peddler and butler in his cabinet.
\nAnd so, yeah, I think it was deliberate. I’d like to ask a question about the international
\ndimension of all this, especially in 1998, when it comes to a surprise to the
\nBritish that the Americans have taken over the Philippines especially and territories
\nin the Caribbean. But to the British. This is okay for one reason. It
\nprevents further German expansion in the Pacific. But there’s
\nanother dimension to it, because a few years later, the British and Japanese concluded an
\nalliance with the Anglo Japanese alliance, the
\nAmericans. This is my question. To what extent were they kind of anticipating that this might lead
\ninto vast, complex international complications? Well, I think I think they knew that, but then I think
\nthey knew that they were in a changing world. I mean, particularly the
\nforeign policy men, if you will, around McKinley, including Roosevelt as a junior guy.
\nBut they knew the world was changing. This is one of McKinley’s McKinley’s. McKinley is seen as an
\narch protectionist, for example. But he is that he is shot in Buffalo in nineteen 01 September
\nof nineteen one after giving a speech that basically says the world has changed and we must
\nembrace reciprocity if you lower your tariffs to the sale and importation of American goods in
\nyour country. We should lower our tariffs and obstacles to trade with you
\nbecause you realize as the world is changing. So I think particularly since you look, he is the guy,
\nnot Roosevelt. It’s it’s it’s McKinley with long the secretary of Navy
\nand Roosevelt, the assistant secretary of Navy who begin building the great American white fleet. They begin
\nbuilding the modern American Navy. And why not? Because he would just felt we need to have a nice navy. He was thinking
\nin international terms, we live now in a global world. And our our sorry economic success
\nas a country depends upon our ability to sell things around the world. In order to do that, we must protect our
\ntrade routes and make our influence known. Which is why I think he took away, even though complicated
\nlives for everybody who had to deal with one of the most pressing questions of trade in the eighteen
\ntake the action and take Puerto Rico, because the question was, what do you do to keep
\nAmerican influence in in our neighborhood? Michael Brewer
\nthrough here among the three speaking Texan.
\nSo I hope you and mine
\nbegin in Havana. Where is the end
\nof the main the United States
\nmilitary action aggression, which punctuated
\nthe extended tradition that began with Pogue’s deceptive?
\nWhich leaves the base as politically for the invasion of Mexico.
\nOne could argue, looking at consequences like the other events.
\nShaped, didn’t shape but influenced and gave emphasis
\nto an American aptitude which also manifest itself in the 20th century.
\nIn the 21st century, the Tonkin Gulf resolution and also
\nthe deception and misrepresentations that led us to invade
\nIraq. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. These events. Well, first of
\nall. First of all, let’s let the act of deception. You said that you
\nsaid that once already. So I’ve got him. So first of all, I’d say that to Trent. It goes back
\nfurther than that, because I’m I’m doing some work on a third book and
\nI’m looking at the Louisiana Purchase. One of the reasons we get Louisiana is because we threatened the French
\nthat if you don’t sell it to us, we may just take it. In fact,
\nin fact, literally the on the on the 10th of April, 18 0 3,
\nNapoleon meets with his navy, his Navy secretary and his treasury secretary
\nand says, should should we take possession Louisiana or give it up? Because he has just gotten
\nword of a debate in Congress in which Senator Ross of Pennsylvania has basically said
\nlet’s let’s here’s a resolution authorizing the president, take fifty thousand people and fifty thousand
\nvolunteers and mobilize them. And he’s also gotten word from the
\nFrench charge d’affaires in in in Washington that that
\nthere’s that by the time that they take possession of Louisiana, it may actually be in the hands of men
\nfrom Kentucky. So this this is this America is an expansionist
\ncountry. And so, yeah, there’ve been some moments now. I will take umbrage
\nat one thing. I do not think it was appropriate for you to launch such a vicious personal attack
\non Senator Ted Kennedy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator John Kerry,
\nSenator Reid of Nevada, and others who voted in favor of the authorization
\nfor the use of force after looking at the intelligence and concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons
\nof mass destruction. You were not guilty of deception. They made a good faith effort to
\nlook at the same intelligence that President George W. Bush looked at. And they came to the same conclusion.
\nYou may remember, for example, Senator Kennedy giving a speech at Georgetown University saying, of
\ncourse, I’ve looked at intelligence and Saddam has WMD, but I believe we ought to use diplomacy,
\nnot force, in order to remove it. You may remember the speech given by John Kerry in which he used
\nlanguage regarding the presence of nuclear materials and nuclear weapons programs
\nin Iraq. That was far beyond anything that the Bush administration said. You may remember the speech given
\nby Al Gore at the Commonwealth Club in the fall of 90 of 2002,
\nsaying that Saddam had WMD and represented a serious threat biological, chemical and nuclear
\nweapons that represented a threat to the stability of the region and unite in the interests of the United States. So
\nI would not accuse these people of making a good faith effort to look at the existing intelligence and saying that they were
\nguilty of deception and. Through that intelligence. And you will know.
\nNo, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t. Go read. Go read, go read, if you will,
\nthe read the report. Good. Well, finish. People that you referred to
\ndid not read. Well then, then that’s good. That’s really condemning them.
\nWell, yes, that’s really condemning him. Speaking as a Democrat. The way you speak
\nas we speak. So am I. Sir, I served my country for seven
\nyears. So don’t give me that line. We’re here to talk about McKinley. If you won’t have a political
\nargument and rehash Iraq. You and I can stay here afterwards and spend hours talking about it. But
\nbut you’ve made your point. You think it was deception and misrepresentation? I say that’s absolute bunk.
\nA-Day. Vineberg. Nice save.
\nI ask you to compare maternally with his predecessor, Cleveland.
\nI have the impression from reading Philip’s book about
\nMcKinley that if you had to oversimplify and put them on a
\nspectrum from left to right, that McKinley would be to the left of Cleveland.
\nCould you comment on that? Well, that’s not uncommon during the Gilded Age for the for the Republican to be,
\nin our modern terms to the left of a Democrat, because the Democratic Party
\nduring the Gilded Age is the party of limited government, low taxes, free trade.
\nSo the boats and well. And he’s in the minority of the Democratic Party.
\nBut by the end of his term, this is the one this we’re going through a populist moment where the Democratic
\nParty is basically changed from being the hard money party of Jackson
\nto being a soft money party. And this happens it happens during Cleveland in large part because
\nof the of of the crisis on the plains and the economic disruption the
\ncountry goes through. But yeah, look, things didn’t think about this. For example, McKinley is an
\nardent proponent in the 1880s of federal protections for black rights in the South, for civil
\nrights in the South. He’s a he is a protectionist. He’s in favor of funding the government
\nnot by high taxes, but by high tariffs. And when do we get to the
\nend? When we get to 1892 and 1888. Grover
\nCleveland is a hard money man. Realistically, until the 1896
\ncampaign, McKinley has a very mixed record on currency. He comes from a very competitive
\nstate with a lot of soft money, inflationary views going back to the civil war. And so he
\nis like he votes and he votes for soft money measures
\nthroughout the 1870s and 80s. Though he is fundamentally you know, he is instinct is
\nI got to do politically cover my flank. I’m in a district that is highly competitive
\nand where the opinion is split. But when push comes to shove, he’s a hard
\nmoney man. What one other thing, move quickly? Well, I think the biggest
\ndifference between the two men, it is their political skills.
\nCleveland, there’s a brittleness to him. There’s a if you’re really into the era, read,
\nread the letter, read his letters. Alan Evans did did a collection of his extensive pleasure.
\nHe is look, this guy is. Thank God they didn’t have Twitter back then because he is raging in private
\nin the White House about being stabbed in the back by his fellow Democrats. And he’s angry.
\nMcKinley is a genial figure. Fact Reid once complained, he said, My enemies
\nalways feel compelled to apologize to William before they call him names. And
\nMcKinley was an adroit manager of people. And he had a he had a
\nvery affable personality, but smart as hell and knew how to maneuver people. And
\nCleveland, bless his soul. Twice elected president nonconsecutive terms
\nwas not that was not that able a politician.
\nThe bill will be back there next Friday,
\nsaid Matthew. I thought that was really
\namusing. Graduate. You know, I don’t know much about
\nit. You think he sells cars to
\nwith Lisbon?
\nPuzzled by McKinley, he’s known for the McKinley tariff, as you said, a hybrid Texas man.
\nAnd then with sugar, he had this khabab meat, fat and sugar for a long time. So this
\naside, we know that it was a huge supporter of McKinley. But there’s also the white issue, as
\ncan say a little bit more about what explains this kind of carve out an exception that sugar was well oiled
\non the day to realize Meserve was trained well. Well. Remember, though, McKinley is
\nis not the highest protectionist around. He believes in relatively high
\ntariffs in order to protect that, what they call the home market. American producers
\nand American working people. But he votes against measures that he thinks are too punitive.
\nHis his mentor is Pig Iron Kelly William Kelly, the chairman of the House Ways and Means
\nCommittee. When he comes into Congress and pig iron takes a a tariff
\nbill and blows it up and McKinley votes against it.
\nNow what? Why, sugar? Because McKinley’s view was we shouldn’t have tariffs
\non things that we don’t produce or make in this country. And second of all,
\nwe ought not to have tariffs on things that the ordinary working man or working woman depend upon. So he was
\nput for putting coffee and sugar and several other items like that on what was called
\nthe free list. So there’d be no tariff paid on it. He has a much more nuanced view.
\nI’m a free trader. So, I mean, any protection sounds sort of goofy to me. But
\nbut he has a very nuanced view. He he would preside over these committee hearings. And when he thought that
\nthat industries were asking for more than they deserved to have, he say he would say, I’m not interested
\nin what you want to have. I’m interested in what you and what the whole market must have.
\nSo he is a he’s got a nuanced view on it, which I think made him open to the idea of
\nof we’re a global economy and reciprocity when he comes into politics.
\nThe advocate for reciprocity is James G. Blaine, the monumental liar from the state of Maine. He’s the
\nhe’s the guy who sort of is considered by Republican high tariff men as being as being untrustworthy
\nbecause he’s he’s in favor of reciprocity starting in the hemisphere
\nhere. And then David Edwards and then Tom Hatfield
\ntalked about McKinley in terms of continuity and change. It seems to be that
\nthere’s any discernible tipping point between the two and certainly a generational shift. Yeah,
\nyeah, it’s a shift because of the events that
\nI wanted to know. What sort of 1981?
\nWell, we wouldn’t have been as heavily entertained
\nfor the next seven years. But Mary makes a very good case,
\nI think, in his new book that the seeds of what we attribute to Roosevelt
\ntrust busting, for example, laws to protect
\nfood and so forth. Those have those start to happen under McKinley because again, McKinley is a reformer.
\nSo remember, when McKinley dies, it’s hard for us to get this today because he’s an obscure
\nthe 25th president United States. Who knows who he is when he dies. It is a moment
\nof national grief like the country has not seen since since Lincoln.
\nAnd we’ll not see again until Kennedy, because remember, he comes into office and the country is in
\na deep depression. And almost immediately springs out of the depression. So when he runs for reelection
\nin nineteen hundred, he wins reelection by the largest number since Ulysses
\nS. Grant’s reelection in 1872 against the hapless
\nGreeley. And the country is at peace and prosperity and we’ve won
\nthis short and popular war. And McKinley is a unifying force.
\nAnd so when he is shot in by a terrorist, incidentally, he was shot by an anarchist.
\nAnd when he when his body is conveyed to Washington, D.C., five hundred thousand
\npeople lined the railroad tracks from Buffalo to Washington. When when the station
\nwhen the train comes into the station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, two to to re water
\nthere. Thirty thousand people there jammed into in and around the station. So many people, the governor
\nof Pennsylvania cannot force his way through the crowd in order to pay his respects to Mrs. McKinley. And when
\nthe train begins pulling out of the station, the entire crowd begins spontaneously singing patriotic
\nsongs and hymns. He rolls into the buffalo. He rose and rolls into the Baltimore
\ntrain station. And for the last mile or two into the train station, people have
\nheaped floral tributes on the railroad tracks so that by the time the train pulls
\ninto, the station is literally covered with flowers. A reporter writes, that is
\nwhen they pull out of Baltimore, the sun is setting any any. And he says that all along the tracks
\nfrom Baltimore to Washington, the entire way is lit by bonfires by the
\nfarmers, most of them black, who are standing there soundlessly as the
\ntrain comes by. There are so many people who want to see him lie in state
\nin Washington that literally they extend the hours. But even then, when he is taken to the station,
\nhis body is taken to the station, returned again. There are something like twenty or thirty thousand people still standing in line.
\nAnd the moment he’s late, he is taken home in an open car glass
\ncar. So you can see the the coffin. And as he and 8E,
\nhe’s taken overnight and literally, the reporters talk about how they pass
\nsmelter and mine front and factory all along the way back to Kent,
\nOhio. And all of the men, the working men are standing there saluting their fallen chief.
\nHe’s conveyed to the to the receiving vault in the Canton Cemetery
\nin the schoolchildren of Nashville, Tennessee, have have raised enough money to send a
\ntrain car load of sweetpea flowers to strew on the path into the into
\nthe into the cemetery. So you have this picture of grizzled civil war veterans openly weeping
\nand stopping to pick up a a flower to put it into their into their lapel. The entire cabinet
\nis there. And the receiving vault is in front of a small ridge about 50
\nfeet tall and about 400 or 500 yards long, and the entire ridge is
\ncovered with floral tributes. The czar of Russia and the president of Chile, but most
\nof them are from like the miners of Lackawanna County. Sloot, our chief.
\nYou know, the Croatian American, you know, steel
\nsociety. I mean, it is just in me. I’ve got pictures of these. And you just can’t believe
\nhow personal this all is. There’s one man who’s standing apart from the cabinet.
\nBecause the cabinet, many of them are openly weeping, but Theodore Roosevelt doesn’t want to sit or stand
\nwith the cabinet because he’s afraid his emotions will be overcome. His first pledges I will retain
\nthe Cabinet and fulfill the policies of William McKinley.
\nI remember reading that in Kennedy’s election worker
\na day before the election workers. Lots of places found slips
\nin their pay envelope saying don’t bother to report for work unless
\nMcKinley was there. There were not widespread, but there were very
\nclear statements by. But look, there’s there was a real fear among the working among among business
\nowners that suddenly they would be anarchy. I mean, remember,
\nyou take these two campaigns. One is a unified McKinley says we’re all in this together.
\nThe prosperity of the country depends upon labor and capital together. And he refused to
\npit them against each other. Brian is running around the country in something the country has never seen
\nthis of. He runs the first. He looks like a modern candidate. Well, he’s doing it on the train rather
\nthan flying around. But he is giving some days 12 and 13 speeches.
\nAnd they are nasty. You know, he excoriates the bloodsuckers
\nof Wall Street, a Lombard Street and the money changers of the Rothschilds.
\nAnd you know anybody? I mean, he stands up in Lincoln, Nebraska.
\nAt the train station, he’s on his way to New York City to give a speech at Madison Square Garden to accept
\nformally the Democratic nomination. And he says, I go into the enemy’s country.
\nThe entire campaign is still down. In that one phrase, it’s us versus them.
\nAnd he is constantly harping about how it’s those that don’t have versus
\nthose that have. And as a result, you had business people who literally feared and remember,
\nuntil September, it looks like he’s going to win. You have you have people who basically are
\nsaying we lose this election. I’m going to take what I got and get the heck out of here, you know?
\nYou know, hole up as best I can and try and survive. Tom Hatfield,
\nI admit I took the quiz after the the Normandy trip with Hatfield and
\nI think I passed. But he’s never given me my paper back.
\nYes, I did. Because of your column in review. Well, that’s right.
\nI did that. Yes, you did. I never got in there. Well,
\nas I said, those them got versus those who don’t know who you
\nare. I’m captivated by how captivated you are by
\nthis area, given how you are so identified
\nwith America, with the politics of our country in the early 21st century.
\nWhat was it that captured your imagination so much about the late 19th century?
\nWell, I say there is a stupid story behind that. I
\nwas teaching at the. I was teaching at the LBJ School. And
\nthe only Republican member of the family and I had a half, which is true.
\nAnd I had I was teaching an undergraduate class and a joint appointment with the government department in the journalism
\ndepartment, and it had done so for a couple of years. And the head of the government department, Jim
\nFishkin, said, hey, you’re 40 something. We’ll put you in the p._h._d
\nprogram and fast track you because you got a lot of practical experience and we’ll do this
\nfor you. There’s only one minor thing, which is you’ve got to get your B.A. first.
\nSo. So I took the astronomy course.
\nI took my dad was a geologist, so I took the geology thing and I took the math course.
\nBut I had to demonstrate and fulfill the upper division writing requirement. And after running
\na public affairs business for 18 years, there was no evidence whatsoever that I could string together
\ntwo sentences. Now, I was a little bit busy cause this is nineteen ninety six and
\nsort of it’s becoming clear that Bush might if we don’t win the election, which he doesn’t look like we will,
\nthat 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
\nto find out is there something that I can do without having to take a class? And I’m looking through the
\nhistory and it was at 350 a seminar on historical source writing. Yeah,
\nthree feet three or 3:51 a way. I had no idea. This has never granted, but it sure sounded good. Find
\nit. Professor, do some research in the original source material, write a paper, get three hours
\nchecklist for upper division writing requirement. So I walk into the department not knowing this is never
\ndone and the woman behind the desk sort of looks at me suspiciously and I say,
\nhere’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
\nI said, Well, who’s here? And she said, Well, there’s only one professor
\nhere right now. Lewis Gould. I said, Well, can I see him? And she said,
\nlet me see. So she goes and talks to Gould, who had sort of vague knowledge of who I was. So he
\nsort of intrigues, says, what do you want? What are you interested in writing? But I said, I’m interested in theater. Roseville, 1895.
\nHow does this guy pull it off? Little do I know Gould is a leading historian of the Gilded Age.
\nThis is this is like his like his alley. So he says, I’ll take you on.
\nHe says, but you got to do one thing. You’ve gotta read the McKinley papers because history gets McKinley
\nwrong. So I’m investigating Theodore Roosevelt, but I’m reading the McKinley
\npapers. And by God, there is an amazingly smart operator right there, adroit.
\nDifferent, unusual. And now I can. You know, I sort of fell in love with him
\nand. But all because I wanted to get the upper division writing requirement, which
\nI did get, incidentally, but now without the normal U.T. So
\nat the end of the semester, I didn’t have it done because I was a little occupied in the fall of 90 of 96.
\nSo Gould says, don’t worry. Turn it into the spring. So I turn it in the spring, by which time
\nit has now been removed from the catalog. So I’m like, [INAUDIBLE]. I got three
\nhours, but I didn’t fulfill the upper division ready requirement. So the next fall
\nthey put it back in the catalog. So I go to the undergraduate student advising office and
\nsay, I did this. Can I please get the checkmark? No, no. You have to take it over again.
\nThis guy knew who I was. He was very pointed in his comments about who I was.
\nSo he wasn’t going to give me any. So I went back and did it again and did
\na seminar, a story of sorts. Right. I am the world’s leading expert on the 1940
\nWillkie presidential campaign for the convention. Convention plans. So right
\nhere, I’d be happy to give you all of that, too. But it took me two times to
\nget to get the upper division writing requirement. Fortunately, you could take 3:51 twice. Yeah.
\nIt’s your opinion at both. As a student of the Gilded Age and as a modern strategist,
\nwhat do you people compared our own age to the first Gilded Age? And as you see
\nrevelations about Facebook, you see that groundswell of
\nmovement against concentrated forms of economic power, particularly in Asia.
\nAnd I guess my question to you is a modern political strategist is seen that most of that rhetoric is
\nfrom the left side of the Democratic Party. Is there a middle ground that
\ninvolves much to see? Middle ground? Yeah, well,
\nnot to get this. Now we’re getting out into wacky ville. We’re going through a populist moment,
\njust like they were going through a populist moment back then. But populism is not a
\npopulism is more a method of of acting, that it is a concrete
\nphilosophy. And there is a both there economic. There is a left
\nform of populism and a right form of populism, both of whom share something in common. And that is that the
\nrelationship between the state and the individual has gotten seriously warped and needs to be revisited.
\nAnd the economic populism of the left is that the little man is getting screwed. The big man’s get it all.
\nAnd you’ve got to redo the relationship between the state and the individual in order to let the little man get his fair share.
\nBut there’s also a cultural form of populism, which is to say things are
\nchanging so fast that the things that you hold dear and true, the values that you hold
\nare are being just are being attacked or even disappearing. And we saw that
\nin the 2016 presidential campaign where clearly Trump
\nwas making an appeal towards the forgotten man, towards the values, your values, respect
\nfor law and order, respect for the military, respect for law enforcement, respect for hard work. These
\nthings were being undervalued. What’s interesting is in 1896, we see in Bryan’s
\ncampaign a healthy dose of that cultural populism in the form
\nof agrarianism. He is he is opposed to the modern to the modern industrial
\neconomy. In fact, when he gives his famous cross a gold speech, this pops out.
\nBut there’s a cultural element to his populism in in
\nin it as well as economic. Well, let me right here.
\nSee here.
\nGive me just a second here. He identified free silver
\nas rural and small town America, saying the populated east favorite gold, but those great cities
\nrest upon these broad and fertile plains burned down your cities and leave our farms
\nand your cities will spring up again as if by magic, but destroy our farms and the grass will grow
\nin the streets of every city in the country. So there’s a cultural populism that’s evident in 1896
\nas well. We’ve come to the end of the hour. Could we have a couple of concluding questions?
\nPresence, he was doing something along the lines of why do you think he’s so
\nculturally for? And, you
\nknow, nobody can compete on this for attention like Theodore. He needed it. He wanted
\nit. He got it. McKinley isn’t that kind of a person. Think about this.
\nHe is recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor and refuses to have the application
\npress. I was only doing my duty. He’s a very modest
\nperson and a modest personality, but it made him a very capable leader. He is enormously
\nrespected when he is in Congress and achieves things that were not thought to be
\nachievable by dint of strategy and personal demeanor and so forth. But
\nlook who can who can stand on that stage and not be outshined by Theodore Roosevelt.
\nAnd remember, when we win the 20 years or 30 years after he died, the progressive historians
\ndominated the 1920s and 30s when it came to writing history. And their goal was the
\nyou know, they were captivated by the bombastic, pugilistic Mr. Roosevelt.
\nMcKinley was, you know. Not as hot in
\nthat recent biography of McCain.
\nYou only want to be called major. You said it by the title, he said.
\nThe other titles were thrust on him, but he earned it. Yeah, I said, I don’t know about those others, but I know I
\nearned that one. And he did. Enters the war as a private 18 years old. He
\nand the men and men of the PLO, the teenagers of the Polan, Ohio militia show up at Camp Jackson
\noutside of Columbus in April of 1861 and are told, boys, we’ve
\ngot to do. We got the Vologda volunteer. Great. I mean, the link is called over. I think a seventy
\nfive thousand volunteers are our quota of volunteers has been filled. You have two
\nchoices. Go home or sign up for three years or the duration,
\nwhichever is longer and almost to a man. The teenagers of the of
\nthe polar militia joined up. McKinley gets his first battlefield
\npromotion on the bloodiest day of the Civil War, the Battle of Antietam. A very meticulous,
\nwell organized guy with a lot of integrity. So he’s made a commissary, sergeant. So he is comfortably behind
\nthe front lines when at 2 a.m. the 23rd, Ohio goes into battle and with orders to take
\nthe Burnside Bridge. Some of your civil war buffs may remember the great Stone Bridge.
\nHe’s watching comfortably behind the lines when they go into battle at 2 p.m., they finally
\ntaken the bridge, which were terrific casualties and are now sheltered underneath a bluff from the
\nConfederate troops. And McKinley McKinley’s worried about his comrades because they have not had anything to eat or drink
\nsince the night before. So he finds a wagon, gets a involved it gets a straggler
\nto help him load tins of coffee and boiled meat, whatever that is, and hardtack
\nand fills up the wagon and begins riding towards the front lines through a wooded area. And Officer comics’
\ncomes upon him and says, What are you doing? He says, I’m going to replant supply the men of the 23rd. The officer says,
\nno, you’re not. He said, in order to do that, you’ll have to ride across five hundred yards of open
\nfield. And the only thing in that open field are dead men. Turn the wagon around.
\nMcKinley 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.
\nSatisfied the officer rides off. McKinley has no intention to turn around, rides further to the front
\nlines, comes to the edge of the force. An officer with several of his aides comes rattling up
\nand the same conversation takes place. And he orders McKinley directly. Turn around and go back.
\nDo not proceed any further. McKinley Wright waits until he rides off, and when he does whips
\nthe mules or horses. There’s a big debate on whether it’s horses or mules. I’m a horse man, but
\nwhips the mules, comes roaring out of the tree line and the Confederates can’t believe it.
\nWho is the idiot in the wagon rolling across five hundred yards of open turf and they open up
\nthe entire ridge line, opens up artillery. Musket, fire. Bullets are flying.
\nA cannon shell takes off the back of the wagon. But somehow or another McKinley makes it through this
\nfirestorm, rolls across the bridge and is a close friend and later is a tent mate.
\nRussell Hastings. Later, a general, said the men of the twenty third stood as one and cheered,
\nand McKinley makes his way through the crowd, giving out coffee. One one man says to him,
\nGod bless you, lad, when he gets probably the last cup of coffee you had on this earth. And McKinley says
\nit was the greatest thanks you could ever receive. He’s made a lieutenant, second lieutenant as a result of this.
\nAt the battle occurrence town in 1864, he’s turned into a bright young aide to
\nthe brigade commander. And early in the morning, Jubal, early troops break out of the trees
\nin a surprise attack on the union left and begin to crumple the front line of the union left. And the brigade
\ncommander orders the five regiments under his control to withdraw and before it’s too late. He wants to get him out
\nof there while he could still retreat in good order. And the word gets to three to four
\nof the units. But it doesn’t get to the 13th. West Virginia on the extreme right of the union line.
\nAnd they’re in an orchard. They can’t see the advancing confederates. They’re bout ready to be cut off and shot to
\npieces. And the brigade commander doesn’t want know what to do. He looks around spots. McKinley says, ride
\nto the men of the 13th and get them out of there. This requires as the union line is collapsing,
\nfor McKinley to ride in on an active battlefield in front of the union line ever closer to the Confederates
\nin order to get to the 13th. Hastings said We thought it was a suicide
\nmission and they watched as he mounted his horse and began to ride. And the battlefield is like
\na battlefield, and they are waiting for him to fall and
\na shell goes off right next to his horse. Big blast. And Hastings
\nsaid, we thought he was gone, but he wrote later, out of the crowd of gray smoke came the small brown
\nhorse with the erect horseman. Some air, another McKinley makes it through to the 13th West Virginia. The commander
\nof the 13th, West Virginia. Sort of startled that this is all happening, he says. Can we at least give him a round?
\nThey form up, walk out of the orchard, and lay a barrage into
\nthe advancing confederates, decimating their ranks and retire in good order. McKinley rides behind the union lines,
\nwalks into his brigade commander’s tent. The brigade commander turns around, takes one look at him, turns white.
\nAnd Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes says, My God, I never expected to see you in this life
\nagain. The twenty third Ohio had two future presidents and one future Supreme Court justice
\nin its ranks.<\/p>\n"},"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/09\/british-studies.png","download_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/podcast-download\/46\/worldwide-consequences-of-american-expansion-in-1898-karl-rove.mp3","player_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/podcast-player\/46\/worldwide-consequences-of-american-expansion-in-1898-karl-rove.mp3","audio_player":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/podcast-player\/46\/worldwide-consequences-of-american-expansion-in-1898-karl-rove.mp3<\/a><\/audio>","episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":[],"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/feed\/podcast\/bsls","embedCode":"

Worldwide Consequences of American Expansion in 1898 – Karl Rove<\/a><\/blockquote>