earned income tax, whatever. what can we possibly do to do with that troublesome problem, because you have no majority support for a cut, a pass people don't take. >> you do have a ton for asking very difficult questions. but that's the right way to do things. i mean, i won't be used of, and c-span audience of misleading things. it is true, apparently somewhere between 40 to 45% of taxpayers don't pay net income taxes this year. it is true those same people, what's different from them not paying taxes at all. they pay other taxes, sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and so on. the problem remains for the same reason. if new spending and new programs

are paid for by income taxes, income taxes are about half of federal revenues, that means the problem, the lady mentioned is, in fact, very real. because new spending and expansion of government is not going to fall on the taxes -- it's not going to have any cost on people who are not paying income taxes. and it is also true that that number has been rising over time, the number of people who don't pay any net income taxes get the danger is, if you get over 50% is you live in a country in which new spending is not paid for by 50% of the population. and in a country that even though we have a mixed government it's not pure majority rule. in that country majority are going to assert themselves in various ways, and you would have i think of it as the following way. the government spending will become a common.

that is, it's an idea that people will be able to vote for more spending and not have to pay for it. there will be any cost, and so you would just rapidly have an ongoing and persistent fiscal crisis. so what do you do about that? this is new. this was not -- and it's also fair to point out as keith hennessey has pointed out, is that gop has been equally -- this is not some big democratic conspiracy or something. the gop has implicated in this also because of the earned income tax credit is part of it. and expansion of it. so what do you do about it? i think the people -- everyone of both parties has to realize that if you want to do something for people in the bottom half of the income distribution, you're not going to be doing something for them in which they become essentially totally dependent on the top half. you are, in fact, dividing the country, right? and far from being something

that is in which we are all in it together and in which some importantly we all can see each other as equals, you are going to create a country in which one -- is going to be resentment on both sides of the taxpaying a question. recent of those who have to pay because the others don't pay, and resentment from the people who don't pay because they will have a sense that the others -- the people who are our taxpayers are denying them something, or that they look down on or that they become second class citizens. this, to my mind, compared to the 20 years i studied is a new development an extraordinarily dangerous. and has to be met by common conviction that it is just not tenable for the long-term health of the country. >> and unfortunately we are about out of time. leverages noted in the book is a devil in bookstores now, "the struggle to limit government."

also we have a few copies your on and so if folks in attendance would like one, please see me after the event or my colleague there in the back. thank you so much for attending, and let's onclude by thanking both dr. samples and congressman sensenbrenner for the remarks. [applause] >> john samples is director of the center for representative government at the cato institute and adjunct professor at johns hopkins university. for more information visit cato.org. >> there is this idea that sometimes crisis our events and are unpredictable and very rare. unit, my good friend, you might know this book, black swan. the second edition has been published this week. those our events that occur when there is a distribution with thoughts of -- the father but

they're coming out of nowhere. one of the things i learned by starting financial crisis through history and emerging markets and the most recent one, in the book looks not just at the current financial crisis but goes back through history and through time and across the world, is that the first chapter of the book in the title it is a white swan as opposed to black swan. and white swan. first because christ is in my view are predictable. because they are not just random events but they are a build of macroeconomic financial and policy risks and vulnerabilities. unit, bubble, excessive level, excessive credit, easy money, lack of supervision of the financial system. so they're not coming out of nowhere. they are predictable. and being predictable they can also be prevented. and the second thing about crisis is important that, you know, the title of the book is

"crisis economics," i am an academic that i teach microeconomics. but if you look in textbook of economics, they barely have a chapter of the economic movement of the financial crisis. most of them do not even refer to them. and unfortunately it is that were supposed to be occurring once every 100 years are occurring much more frequently, both in advanced economies and emerging markets. the first couple chapters of the book, grow through the history of financial crisis all the way back to the netherlands in the 17th century and the crisis in the 18th, 19th century, the great depression and many other episodes of financial distress and emerging markets and advancing economies. when i was in washington, every other corner was an emerging market. the country was going the way of mexico in 95 and korea,

malaysia, indonesia and thailand, russia, brazil, turkey, argentina, pakistan, ukraine, uruguay, brazil again, the dominican republic. so we have frequency that was actually kind of scary. and then also this kind of crisis in many advancing economies. they occur much more frequently than people think. so they are not just events but their unfortunately often. and secondly they are becoming much more barely. if you think about the damage that is caused by financial crisis, the recessions falling employment, falling incomes. distraction of well. housing welcome stockbroker well. and usually the fiscal cost of cleaning up the financial crisis tend to be huge in terms of building a financial institution or fiscal status needed to avoid a severe economic downturn. so not only that are occurring much more frequently than the

pass, they are more building, damaging and the cost of cleaning up the mess is significant. that's what one understanding economic and financial crisis, and two, trying to prevent them as becoming a really important there's already a backlash because of this financial crisis against market economies, against free trade, against capital flows, against liberalization. and i think part of the backlash is because economic and social have become so large and excessive that there is rightly so a backlash against them. so the point about the book is crisis are predictable, preventable, crisis are not black swan is when they aren't white swan events. and we try to understand them in their current throughout history. across countries and throughout history. another thing i think is important to consider here that relates action to what's

happening right now is that while many of these financial crisis comes from a buildup of excessive mistaking, and that leverage in the private sector, for example, the recent crisis, too much debt and leverage by households, by banks, by a financial institution, even by some subset of the corporate sector. when you look at the data today you see that the private sector are now establishing the very high level. they have no phone very much. the process of deleveraging of the private sector has been struck that one thing is instead we've had this massive deleveraging of the public sector. so what is the next age of this financial crisis? very large budgetary deficits and very large coalition of public debt. the reasons for these act human relation -- accumulation is threefold.

revenue fall, taxes fall and you also have some dramatic stabilizer of the expanding side like unemployment benefits for those who lose their jobs. secondly, we did proactive fiscal statements during the crisis in u.s., europe and japan. in china because private demand was collapsing. if you look at the recent crisis, you know, in the first two quarters the following up with demand and employment in exports and imports was really tracking the years between 1929 and 31 at the beginning of the great depression. so it's very scary in the fourth quarter of 2008 in the first quarter of 2009. a kind of freefall, economic. at the beginning of the great depression big and so we need countercyclical stimulus to prevent this great recession of 2008, 2009 from turning into something uglier and worse. so that was the second reason why. and the third reason is of

course there is debate on that that we need to socialize some of and put them on the ballot sheet and paula bailout or put it back stop the financing system. and putting on the ballot sheet of the government some of the private liabilities of households or corporations or banks and other financial institutions, is an additional reason why there's been this build of public debt to designate the paradox we're facing right now is we need this policy standards, monetary easing, fiscal easing, budget deficits, backstopping and was never a free lunch. whenever you run large budget deficits, there's public debt eventually to to a problem. that if you're a very large fiscal deficit, eventually you raise taxes or cut spending to avoid a fiscal crisis. and if you don't, address this looming fiscal problems, then

there are limited options to give you default on their public debt, or you can run the printed press and like some central banks have decided to, eventually wind up with high inflation. high inflation is a debt because it reduces the value. so in my view, that's an important point, what is happening today in greece and in europe is the next age of this financial crisis. the first digit is financial crisis was the fiscal problems for all the debt problems of the private sector. and this housing bubble did not occur only in the united states, and the united kingdom, and ireland, in spain, in iceland, any number of countries in central europe and in dubai and so on. so there was a bubble that went

bust, and in the second stage of it was that the policy response included some socialization of this private loss. that's why, for example, very large budget deficits been today, cleaning up the banks. so we've had these real editing of the public sector and one of my concerns is the same as on the fiscal side, as i said was necessary to prevent a great recession from becoming a great depression. now we're in the next age of this financial crisis, one of which if we don't address the fiscal issues over time, by raising taxes and cutting spending, eventually we'll have a fiscal, we'll have an inflation going up and that's going to be also disastrous. >> every weekend c-span2's book tv features 40,000 nonfiction books. this weekend on afterwards john

is the reluctance by, a former cia officer talks about life in the agency before and after 9/11. is edited by former cia inspector general frederick hit. find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org. >> we are at the hilton hotel in washington, d.c., for the organization of american historians are meeting in the early april months here in washington. and let me introduce you to one of the authors who we are speaking here. robert mcelvaine. want to start, mr. mcelvaine with the 25th anniversary edition of a book called "down and out in the great depression." why is this book coming out on its quarter-century anniversary? >> well, actually for me it's never gone out of print. it's a book that is to have a great deal of interest are longtime. it's letters people wrote mostly to franklin at a lower roosevelt during the depression. when i first came across these

in the roosevelt library in hyde park new york, and long time ago now, i think i must've been in a negative number of age at time. i was struck by how easy me a feeling for what life was like in the depression, such as nothing else had. this was sometime after studds turf interviews and oral history of people that survived the depressidepression and that was good. this was people remember decades later these letters were written by people right at the time and you really get the feel of the source of problems they were going to. i went to a few publishers who really like it but said these letters are just too depressing. it is the depression but a lot of people have really felt that connection as they haven't to any other means, finding out what it was like. >> where did the phrase, the forgotten man, come from? >> well, it dates back to a number of earlier things. for instance, there's a recent book which i think is quite

wrong and interpretation of the great depression by andy schleck called the forgotten man. and she is taking that phrase from somewhere, from the lower part of the 19th century. but franklin roosevelt in the speech, campaign radio address before even had the nomination in 1932 talking about the forgotten man, and that's who we need to think of in terms of what needed to be done during the depression. >> it's not been out of print for a quarter century, but do you find there is a different sort of poignancy now in the wake of the financial crisis? >> there certainly is. being an expert on the depression and as i said unfortunately for most of us, my book on the depression era are somewhat gain an interest in the last two years because of the circumstances. so a lot more people really i think want to see what it was like then because conditions are

not as bad but they're certainly more sober for a lot of people that have been any time since it. >> you are here featuring too. the others called the great depression, america from 1929-1941. how did you get interested in this topic state? that's the question i'm often asked that i think the original interest came from my parents. i was adopted and actually my mother was simply over 45 at the time i was adopted. and so they had been adult during the depression. i used it a lot of stories from them about it. i think that's what initially sparked my interest. >> when you begin to research professionally did you find their stories rang true? >> yes. my father, during my lifetime, was a manager of a grocery store. neither one of them were college in the gated. he had been out of work on two or three occasions during the depression but never for very long. he would find jobs that weren't exactly what he wanted to do. but he wasn't out of work long.

they're actually not not fond of franklin roosevelt. i got to be different from there. they were pretty liberal republicans back when there was such a thing spirit what is your own view of franklin roosevelt? >> well, i think there's all sorts of things that were wrong with franklin roosevelt. on the other hand, i think is probably the most important figure in the '20s century in the world really, the only other one i would consider a contender for the title would be gandhi. because roosevelt basically at a time when both capitalism and democracy were in serious question in the 1930s, capitalism had seemingly failed and democracy, and a lot of people at various parts of the word was thinking was not capable and even with the crisis of the depression. showed that they could work. certainly has a lot of people point out the new deal didn't end the depression. i think it's interesting in the 25th anniversary of the great depression but, i have a long

introduction, talking about the comparisons between the '20s and the first decade of this century, and how the conditions were more or less re-created with tax cuts for the rich and wealthy skewing to the top and whatever anyone may think morley, s.o.b. doesn't work economically in an economy that is dependent on mass consumption that you have got to masses of people having enough money to buy this stuff. but what roosevelt did and as i said a moment ago, the criticism that you a lot is the new deal didn't solve the depression, and some politicians now say, that means that because it didn't end in world war ii, you see spending as the new deal did, doesn't work. well, yes, in fact, it didn't end until world war ii but that shows exactly the opposite of what these people were saying because a spinning in world war ii just took off in the new introduction. i have some grass, very simple graphs showing unemployment and gdp and spending and tax rates,

and put unemployment nosedives and gdp sort of is exactly when spending went through the roof in world war ii. so i think that the new deal certainly made it much easier for people to live with the depression, and probably could have ended the depression era early had they been willing as some economists were suggesting in the early 1930s, as i said, think about what would happen if war were declared tomorrow, just as they do not worry about where the money is coming from, the depression would be over, why don't we just been we're at war? why do we spend as if we were at war? but roosevelt was, for all the complaints, about being a socialist and that sort of thing and same sort of things, same degrading about president obama now, that the upsurge know and were absurd about him that he was very much worried about budget deficits and never would -- he would count his deficits in order to keep people from

starving and was absolutely necessary, but until the war forced upon him he was never willing to give the level of stimulus that would've gotten us out of the depression. >> document some of the similarities now and the depression era, when you talk about some of the contrast, certainly when it began the socioeconomic level of the united states was very much different than we are today. so tell people, especially with the letters illustrated about what a hardship for like a we can't even conceive of today and. >> one of the striking things in the down and out has different types of people writing different, writing letters. there's a chapter which is a special pointer to find for instance, a 12 doughboy in chicago who is writing, and you see the role reversal. he finds his father crying answers why are you crying, data? he says i am crying because i can't put food on the table. you see this total reversal. you see another young girl

writing, asking the owner -- eleanor roosevelt if there's anyway to get a christmas present and the chris at present she wants is a so so they can make great. she isn't talking about a fisher price toy store. she is talking about an actual store. on the other hand, there are a lot of letters from people or middle-class who had seen themselves as very different from people during the 1920s. and the effect this has on them is devastating, and they tried to keep saying we are not the sort of people who need charity. we don't want charity. in some cases one woman sends a ring to eleanor roosevelt that just as whole possessor of collateral for what i'm asking you to give me because i don't want to hand out. but there is a situation where they need handouts. is really striking were everywhere. go ahead and. >> particularly, you have a chapter of letters about life in row commuters. could you talk about what life was like for rural america?

>> life in rural communities, there are lots of people who are resorting, there's one not actually in my letter, but i found another place, an article from a magazine at the time, people were a few talking about how the eat weeds but to look to see what cows eat, which we did the cows are in because they are not poisonous. they are actually reduce it to that sort of level. i mean, you find people again who were writing at the time, and a lot of these letters are very much, you can tell educational level, or lack thereof. there is extremely bad spelling and ungrammatical, often written on paper bags and intend to. nothing like stationary. and these people are really desperate. they saw franklin and eleanor roosevelt as people that they could actually appeal to common people that cared about them. and franklin roosevelt would sometimes encourage people to

write in his fireside chats and eleanor roosevelt had a newspaper column, and the level, some 15 million letters that were preserved from the general public. this is a rate far, far higher than any other time in american history. >> how many did you go through? >> i want to about 15,000. it's a small percentage of the total but it was about all i could handle. i think is a very good sample and. >> you kept the vernacular, and so the spelling is captured, the same structure. how did you capture for modern readers such things as writing on paper bags and the like? >> well, i don't point that out for each individual letter like what it was written on or in pencil or pen or whatever. but i talking introduction about how many of them were written this way. >> did you change as a result of reading these letters? >> i think so. i am -- it's been five years now. >> i often think about what the things were that kind of shaped

me. i mention my parents before. my mother, although she was not college educated, was a lover of history and constantly reading. and that had a big impact on me. i thought back several years ago when i was in a group talking about writing and how is it you got into this, and i remembered my third grade teacher, i'd written some sort of thing, i think was about some spanish nobleman or something it is the third grade level. and she said this is wonderful, you're going to be able write a. i'd forgotten told about that but i think it sustained all these years when i get rejections. what does the editor of "the new yorker" no one my third grade teacher said i was going to be a great writer. and i also think back on i used to watch one of the 1930s versions, film versions of the christmas carol. and i think that sort of had an effect on me having some empathy for people like that. but certainly when i got to these letters.

>> a specific set of the. first, african-american that you separate them into their own chapter. why is that? why are you telling that? >> there are a few african-american letters and other places, but the ones that are in a separate chapter tell a great deal because the new deal program from franklin roosevelt would need to go so far as to and those -- introduce an anti-lynching bill. they would have filibustered such a bill and so it would not college anything anyway. and he argued and he argued with eleanor. that things that were aimed, programs that were aimed at the war that african-americans were disproportionately among the poor and these would help them. and what programs did include was provisions that there should be no discrimination. of course, that didn't mean that on the local level that does not sort of discrimination and the

letters in the chapter from african-americans can you see this a great deal that although people are not handling the really for other programs in the way intended and do something about this. one of the most striking things is some of the letters specifically say please don't tell the local authorities about this. and then you will find in the attachment that is passed onto the local authorities. there is no for the record to see what actually happened the chapter wonder whether this resulted for a bad things. >> another separate caveat is called conservatives. >> and conservative, covers a lot of ground. i think in contemporary terms people who are calling themselves conservatives in many cases are not really conservatives. in fact, i recently started referring to them as sort of mirror image of progressives as regress its. some conservatives in the three for people who simply were better off and wanted to

maintain things as they were. not in the conservative chapter but people sometimes would be classified as on that side of the spectrum, are among some of the more radical people to the right. and define a few letters in their, they are represented a larger number, although certainly not a major percentage of all the letters, who are just lately anti-semitic and racist. one woman talks about how my husband says the jews are in charge of everything. we should kill all the jews. this is a reminder that there was a bug in the 1930s called it can't happen here that sinclair lewis did, but the point of it was that it can happen here and it's kind of a reminder and i think one of the reasons that franklin roosevelt is so important is he managed to show that at least the government could do something democracy could do something, slightly modified capitalism could do something, and really i think preserve both of those

systems into world war ii. and i did something on public radio a few months ago, talking about how one of the things that were shown, one of the things that is relevant to today is that it seems that because of the problems and basically a democratic system, the founding fathers decided that they would have a system based on democracy but include checks and balances to deal with those excesses. and i think roosevelt understood that we really need to understand today that the same thing is true, that capitalism is the best economic system that has all sorts of inherent dangers and that we need economic checks and balances. that's what the new deal provided, and so the bottom what of that it seems to me is that a spoonful of so-called socialism helps the capitalism go up. >> we are again featuring two books here. what does the enduring popularity of the letters look,

to five years now, say about the popularity of the first person history for americans? . . >> do you have sympathy for future generations who will have servers and email messages to look at as opposed to -- >> who won't for the most part? yes. it's going to be a very different sort of situation. i don't have things are going to -- it's a mixed blessing because there are so many things that are so much more widely

available now as archives that can be accessed from anywhere on the internet. but in terms of preserving a lot of this sort of thing, it's not happening. and that's unfortunate for future historians. >> well, last question, really, in reference back to the first thing you said about publishers these letters being sad and not wanting to do them was all -- were all things in america during the depression depressing? was the nation completely in bloom? >> that's one of the people have the impression that they do and unemployment reached one-third by 1933 -- one of the reasons we have that image is that almost all the images in the '30s is from black and white movies and that's makes a enormous difference. not only are the people in the photographs in the foreign security photographers, for instance, looking unhappy and depressed but the fact they're black and white makes it more that way. among the positive things going

on in the depression is that the 1920s is really the first time i think in the history of the world that there's this growing emphasis on people consuming more and more. and so businesses in order to convince people to sell, to buy on credit and they have to start undermining traditional values. and so they're starting to encourage people to think about me and getting stuff now and not deferring gratification. they started in that direction in the 1920s but then there's a real reversele of that in the '30s. and a remarkable degree of feeling together this sort of thing you see with ma joad in the "grapes of wrath." people who have less are willing to share more. there's the hollywood musicals and the dancing and all that sort of thing which come out after the new deal starts and there's a revival of optimism. there are good things going on as well. it's not all bleak.

>> you have two books down and out in the great depression and also the great depression, america, 1929 to 1941. thank you for visiting with us. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> next, the story of the first ever american inoculation program during boston's 1721 smallpox epic. "the pox and the covenant" is the book. [applause] >> thank you very much. it's great to be here. and thank you for that very, very kind introduction. i'm glad we have a full house. and thank you for coming out to support rj julia independent booksellers. a wonderful asset to your community. a delightful bookstore. i'm almost tempted to leave the podium and range among the shelves for a couple hours and have you join me with a cup of

coffee. they're celebrating. they are in their 20th anniversary so congratulations to this bookstore and hopefully i'll be able to come back and celebrate their 40th anniversary in a couple of decades, god willing, right? but anyway, it's interesting -- going out on the book tour and speaking to a lot of audiences about both my books. and it's always interesting to see kind of the reaction you're going to get to your book. most of it obviously very positive. and probably one of the most interesting comments was from a friend of mine in williamsburg who said -- came up to me at one of my speaking engagement at our club and said, tony, i have to admit i really didn't like history very much in school because it was kind of boring. but you make it come alive. i love your book. i feel like i'm there. this is for hurricane of

independence. she said i feel like i'm newfoundland and a hurricane is coming. i'm on the battlefields or in the american revolution, you know, i'm so engrossed in the book, i feel like i'm there. of course, i was very appreciative and said thank you and such. and her husband kind of elbowed me in the ribs and said, yeah, she likes it so much she reads four pages a day. it's right next to the readers digest in the bathroom in that little basket that we all have. [laughter] >> and so i was chuckling and then, of course, he elbowed me again, yeah, some days she likes it so much she goes back and reads eight pages. i guess as an author sometimes you have to take the praise you can get, right? but i'm going to talk about the pox and the covenant tonight. it was such a great story to research, to write. it almost told itself. and i think it's a great story. i'm really glad to be here to share it with you.

and if you'll indulge me, i'll start by doing just a little reading from the beginning of the book. the killer escaped notice because it was microscopic. a virus. it did not yet have a human host but that did not matter. the virus could survive for weeks outside a human body. such as in a blanket or in an article of clothing. because of the timing of the voyage and the appearance of symptoms it is likely that no sailor was infected until about halfway through the voyage. it would not be difficult under such circumstances for a sailor to breathe in millions of very small viruses from such items as a blanket or an article of clothing. the virus was, of course, not conscious of its actions. the organism needed a human host so that it could reproduce and endure. in order for a sailor to catch the disease, he needed to have been free of the disease from the moment of infection.

because you receive immunity for life if you survive smallpox. even if you lack self-awareness one of the sailors at the most opportune time, the voyage to america normally lasted about two weeks. if a virus infected a sailor too early in the voyage, it would kill several sailors. but the infection would be confined to a single ship because the captain would not put into port if the ship was full of contagion. a sailor who contracted the disease within a ship's docking would enter a population of susceptible people and spread it without realizing. the disastrous results of his innocent actions. ships offered the best route for the virus to spread. the ships went atlanta, caribbean and british america. they stopped for repairs and supplies and trade.

these imperial trade networks gave the virus the potential to unleash a major pandemic that could kill many thousands of people. and, in fact, a sailor did contract in a british warship coming up from bar bado. -- barbados. they stopped off in boston for repairs and trade and it was board the h.m.s. seahorse and it was headed for boston massachusetts, the center of american puritanism since its funding a century before. puritanism since its founding then was shaped by covenantal theology. and would the puritans understanding and reaction to these -- to this disease would be completely shaped by their puritan outlook. puritanism would also face its greatest challenge because of the outbreak. now, the ship pulled into boston

harbor. and many of the crew went ashore including this one sailor who had smallpox. and he didn't know it. and he went ashore and frequented probably the taverns of boston as sailors were want to do on occasion. and he also probably went into some other shops and was interacting with a lot of people. and with every cough, with every sneeze, every handshake, every interaction with other people, he was spreading smallpox around boston. and, in fact, he came down with symptoms a few days later and so did another person in town. and the town authority -- it came to the notice of the town authorities. and they reacted very quickly because smallpox the ravaged boston and other port cities about every generation. once enough people have been born who had no immunity to the smallpox, a ship would come in, bring the disease and an epic would rage.

-- epidemic would rage. the town's select men reacted. they sent a nurse to the two homes. they sent guards. they posted guards at the door to quarantine the two victims. and they also flew a flag outside the house which read -- it was a red flag which said, god have mercy on this house. and they thought they had successfully isolated these people. well, of course, it was a fool's hope. within a few more weeks in early may they noticed that there were eight more cases of smallpox around the town. and i chartered them on bonner's famous map from 1722. and i found that most tragically they were in every single corner of boston. and again those people were going to their puritan meeting houses and the anglican church and going to shops and

interacting with their neighbors and again spreading smallpox all over the town. now an unlikely person stepped into this mix. he was perhaps the most famous scientist and the most renowned scientist in all of america. he was a member of the british royal society and regularly sent contributions to the royal society. he had a library of some 3,000 books and had studied medicine at harvard. he had worked out an almanac. and even started the first scientific society in all of the american colonies. he left an autobiography for his children and also wrote essays on doing good. now, of course, you know who i'm talking about, benjamin franklin, right? of course, you would be wrong. the answer is surprisingly

cotton mather. yeah. a lot of people don't know that. he was one of the most renowned scientists and advanced scientists of his day he he even preached heliocentrism and the ideas of the scientific revolution right from the pulpit. very advanced scientist. and back in 1716, he had talked to one of his slaves. and he asked him, were you -- did you have smallpox? and the slave answered, well, yes and no. and you can see that the slave confounded this great scientist. he probably had a quizzical look on his face and he said what do you mean? >> well, yes, i had smallpox but not probably in the way that you think. i was inoculated. and he actually showed him the scar in his arm. and told mather about inoculation. and mather also read about it

being practiced in greece and turkey a few months later. through his journal from the british royal society. and what inoculation was, unless you've seen the john adams video and you see abigail and the children getting inoculated. they would make an inoculation in the arm and they would scoop out some smallpox from the victim and mix it in the blood and you would get smallpox but usually the symptoms were milder and the death rate was much, much lower. as we'll see it was down 1 to 3% for getting inoculated. and up around 15 to 30% was pretty normal for getting it through your respiratory system through the common way. completely virgin populations who had never had any exposure like native americans, the death rate could be 70, 8090%.

so very, very tragic. and mather learned next time we go to boston i'm going to go to practice inoculation. mather was a man of enlightenment and just assumed everyone would go along. and he was a bit vain and just assumed everyone would fall along. and when the epidemic hit and mather learned of it. he did. he did write a letter to the doctors asking them to practice inoculation and he was met with stony silenced. nobody responded. and he was probably quite confused by that. and he sent another lab. and one lone doctor, dr. boilston responded. and we don't have a record

particularly of them meeting we can imagine them meeting at their home conferring about it talking exactly how inoculation is done and thinking about their plan for practicing it. boilston could not be inoculated himself. he had had smallpox before. and they knew enough that -- the inoculation wouldn't take. he couldn't get smallpox again. and so he tested it out on his own 6-year-old son. now, i have a 6-year-old son. and i can't imagine having the courage to actually test this untested medical procedure on him that might possibly kill him. maybe call it foolhardiness, i don't know. but he also tested it out very interestingly on his two slaves, a father and a son. and i don't know whether the slaves actually gave their consent or not. and it raises all sorts of interesting questions about the nature of slavery. i'd like to imagine getting to

know dr. boilston across 300 years in the course of my research that he did ask them for their consent. but i have no evidence of it. i can't confirm it either way. it raises a lot of interesting questions. he treated it out on the trio. and, in fact, it works. boilston's son kind of takes a turn for the worse but he does survive. and he shows -- boilston shows that it works. and so other people in this small town, although, it was the largest city in america at the time, with 11,000 people -- people hear about it. mather, boilston, they didn't try to hide the fact that they were i knocklating. and if other people come and they're inoculated, too. well, the town goes berserk. everyone goes ballistic. there's outrage. a thousand people had already fled from boston for their lives. in fear of -- in fear of the smallpox virus. and people were outraged. they said how in the world can

you give people smallpox when they're already getting it? this didn't make sense to them. you're just going to spread it around and kill everybody. and boilston was confronted in the streets of boston, mather was confronted. they were assaulted in the streets. and let me give you a little flavor -- mather felt under a great deal of pressure from everyone. and this is what he wrote. being enranged of the proposal that may rescue the lives of our poor people from him has taken a strange possession of the people on this occasion. they rave, they rail, they talk not only like idiots but also like frantics. and not only the position who began the experiment but also i am the object of your fury in

18th century language. he said they're furious. and then he went on to say it another day. the cursed clamour of a people strangely and fiercely possessed of the devil will probably prevent my saving the lives of my own two children from the smallpox and the way of transplantation. his own two children -- we can imagine cotton mather -- his own two children had never had smallpox. and he was afraid for their lives. and wanted them to get inoculated. and was afraid that his own children would die if the town put an end to it. and a few weeks later he was hauled before the town authorities and the collect men. they heard some authorities -- they heard the curse of inoculation. and they ordered him to stop. but boilston, like a good independent, fiercely

independent new englander ignored them and persisted, rejected their authority and just persisted. he wanted to save lives. he saw that it worked and he wanted to continue. and again the town went crazy and it sets off a huge debate because in the newspapers of boston, in the pamphlets in this very literate city with -- with three newspapers, a lot of publishers to publish pamphlets, the puritans, new england really valued education, to read the bible and other books, you know, they believed in it and were highly literate. and so it sets off this huge debate for the people to read about. they debate for and against inoculation. this is where the story just gets even more fascinating. it's so curious. the main proponents of inoculation as i said were the

puritan ministers not just cotton mather but other puritan ministers and also dr. boilston, this one lone doctor. the opponents of inoculation were all the other doctors of boston. and here are their reasons. the doctors said, look, why are you giving people smallpox when have it's already raging in town? they couldn't think outside of their conceptual and very dogmatic framework. their paradigm, their way of thinking. they couldn't embrace a new way of doing things. even more interestingly, they said -- they made -- they quoted scripture against it. quoted scripture against the inoculation and made religious arguments against it with puritan predestination. they said, look, this is god's will from the beginning of time that people are getting sick. you can't intervene with that and if you do, you'll break down greater plagues among us.

god will -- and they said, god is unleashing the devil just like in the book of job on this for our collective sin. don't rain down greater wrath from heaven. the doctors were saying this. cotton mather in his arguments takes a natural law approach. he said, no, god gave us reason to discover medical and scientific truths and discoveries so that we can help people. and he also countered by saying, oh, we can intervene against the will of god to help people, maybe we shouldn't have doctors at all. right? it makes perfect sense. it makes perfect sense. because mather learned the information from one of his slaves, the doctors also made despicable, virulently racist arguments against it. they said, you got your information from a slave? and mather to his credit always

gave his slave credit even when he was attacked for it. he never said, i just had an a-ha moment. never claimed just complete credit. always said, yes, i learned this information from my slave. and the doctors are saying, you can't learn from them. they're slaves. they lack reason he. they're not fully human. they're sneaky. they're liars. very despicable. mather said, no. god gave them feelings. we can learn from them. god gave them a special cure that us advanced europeans don't even have. also the doctor said you learned this information from greece and turkey. those muslims, they're pagans. you can't learn from them either. and so cotton mather and the ministers responded, oh, we can't learn from payingans? -- pagans.

you mean ancient pagans? those ancient doctors who shaped your entire dogmatic way of practicing medicine? those pagans? it's a very curious debate. and, you know, the doctors also were attacking, you know, linger from native american. and mather said we learned how to cure rattlesnake bites from them. he said, look, god gave them a special affliction, a special disease. but he also gave them a special cure. and we can learn from all of these nonwestern peoples. i mean, mather in this whole debate comes across as really pretty liberal-minded, open-minded. even by 2010 standards. it's really quite amazing. and while the doctors -- it just -- it's a crazy debate. the doctors refused to even

examine one patient even under completely isolated conditions out in an isolated in boston harbor. they said we're not going to see patients. even if they had smallpox they couldn't contract it. they refused to see patients. mather said, please -- and boilston said come see one patient. we want you to. the doctors especially dr. douglas who was against it had a copy of the journal. mather said -- can we please borrow yours to make sure we're doing this correctly? just to make sure 'cause we don't anyone to die if we do it wrong. what do you think douglas' answer was? no. i'm not going to lend it to you. the doctors come across as remarkably unscientific. and what do boilston and mather do? they form a hypothesis based upon this information that they gather around through

observation and through reading some of the advanced journals in the world. they form a hypothesis. they test it. it works. they retest it and then they retest it again. and retest. and then they form a theory about inoculation that this is a way to save lives. now, i see some younger members of the audience. i'm not a scientist. i'm a historian. you know that's the scientific method, right? i mean, i know my sixth grade science vaguely, right? but i know enough about it to know that's the scientific method. mather and boilston comes across very scientifically in this debate. this debate rages. and who steps into the fray in august of 1721? you're going to love this. they start -- these brothers start a newspaper called the new england current. and who are these brothers? but a young james and benjamin franklin. and their paper is started for the primary purpose of opposing inoculation.

they serve as a mouthpiece for the opposition. and they he print every scurrilous attack on inoculation upon the power of the ministers. they print every piece of scandalous and vicious verse against the ministers and just go after their juggler. -- juglar. james and benjamin franklin don't write against the inoculation. and the debate goes right down into the gutter. right into the mud. they are viciously attacking each other personally calling each other names. the partisanship of today would look like two boy scouts talking in comparison of the attacks. it was just a vicious debate. so this debate rages. now, meanwhile, people are dying of smallpox.

june and july, about a dozen people die. more and more people are getting smallpox. hundreds are sick. in august 26 people die. in october, the number goes up to 101. people are dying. hundreds and hundreds more get sick. it's raging in the fall. probably thousands are sick in october. as many as 411 people die of smallpox in october. now, there's another group that didn't engage in this very public debate. they didn't really leave a lot of records of how they felt about all of this. but i thought their story was really important. they tended young people by the fire who had smallpox. and when you got small pox you could barely eat and drink if it got in your throat. and you can imagine them dripping a few drops of water into these throats. maybe staying up far into the

night tending them by the fireside. even to their own detriment. you can imagine how tired they were. maybe they even had smallpox but were still tending the children. they went out into their garden to get herbs for they had recipe books passed down from their mothers and grandmothers, not only food recipes but also cures. and they probably knew as much of the old medicine coming down from the greeks and the romans as the doctors in town who had read and apprenticed in medicine. and, of course, you know who i'm talking about. the women of boston, right? the great silent majority who didn't necessarily leave records but as i call them in the book they were the great unsung heroes of this epidemic. why? because they put the needs of their sick before their own needs. and helped take care of them as this epidemic was raging. now, in october as i said 411 died and the debate continued. it raged.

and i'm going to do my primary reading from the book about how one person reacted to cotton mather and his support of inoculation. one person in boston had had enough of the high and mighty cotton mather. he lauded his position over everyone thinking he was better than everyone else. he was filled with rage that the minister is in league that quake boilston giving people smallpox. what they were doing just did not make sense. the resentment boiled for weeks if not months and was now about to explode. the person must have nervously sat in his home and an assortment odd materials spread out on the table. i should have a table for a prop here. with quivering hands the individual poured black power into a spherical shape. ...