quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: unanimous consent the call of the terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that we return to legislative session from executive session we're now in. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to calendar number 74, h.r. 2751. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 74, h.r. 2751, an act to accelerate motor fuel savings nationwide and provide incentives to registered owners and so forth. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask consent that the text at 510 pass the senate and modified with the changes at the -- the bill as amended be read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. reid: is a question on passage of the bill? the presiding officer: all those in favor say aye. mr. reid: aye. the presiding officer: all those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. , the ayes do have it. the bill as amended is passed. mr. reid: i ask consent that the title amendment at the desk be considered agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, any statements related to the measure appear in the appropriate place in the record as if given. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: i ask the chair to lay before the senate a message to the -- from the house with respect to h.r. 3082.

the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate the following message from the house. the clerk: resolve that the house agree to the amendment h.r. 3082 entitled an act making appropriations for military construction and so for and for other purposes with an amendment. mr. reid: i move to concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 302 which sat the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 3082 with an amendment 4885. mr. reid: i ask reading of the amendment be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have a cloture motion at the desk. i ask that it be reported. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion.

the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 3082 the full continuing appropriations act with an amendment signed by 16 senators as follows -- mr. reid: i ask that the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i have a second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes amendment 4886 to amendment 4885. mr. reid: i also have a motion to refer to -- refer the house message of the senate appropriations committee with instructions to report back forthwith with the following amendment i ask the clerk to state. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to refer the house message with respect to 3082 to the senate appropriations committee with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment numbered 4887. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and

nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. mr. reid: i have an -- the presiding officer: the yeas and nays railroad ordered. mr. reid: i have an amendment to my instructions which are there at the desk, mr. president. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an amendment number 4888 to the instructions of the motions to refer h.r. 3082. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have a second-degree amendment at the deck i ask the clerk to report. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes amendment 4889 to amendment 4888. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the start treaty. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i have a cloture motion at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion. we, the undersigned senators, in accoraccordance of the provisiof rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, hereby move to bring to a close debates on treaty calendar number 7, treaty doc111-5, the start treaty, signed by 18 senators as follow: reid of nevada, lieberman, rockefeller, dorgan, kerry, whitehouse, pryor, reed of rhode island, menendez, begich, cardin, conrad, nelson of florida, klobuchar, murray, mikulski, dodd and lugar.

mr. reid: i ask the mandatory quorum be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimoui askunanimous consent y committee be discharged from the nominations of -- presidential nomination 235, darrell james bell, and presidential nomination 2348, edwin sloan, one to be united states marshall in -- martial in monday mob and the other to be united states marshal in the district of columbia. that the senate proceed en bloc to the nominations, they be confirmed en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, that any statements relating to the nominations appear in the record at the appropriate place as if read and the president of the united states be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative

session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, for the benefit of all senators, we just sent to the house again the food safety legislation, extremely important legislation. i just got on my desk today one woman who's going to be in the -- she's been in the hospital a year and a half and is expected to be there for two more years as a result of eating some contaminated food. so it's so important. and i am deeply appreciative of the cooperation from everyone, including my friend, the republican leader, to help us get this done. very, very important for our country. perfect legislation? no. but a broad, broad step in the right direction. we haven't done anything in this regard for more than a hundred years for our country. with all the change in processing food, so important. i've spoken to the speaker tonight and this now will pass

the house when they come back monday night or tuesday. so that's extremely important. we are -- we had to file cloture on the continuing resolution to fund the government for the next couple of months. we hope to complete that on tuesday. i hope that it won't be necessary that we use any of the postcloture time. i rather doubt there will but i certainly hope not. we are going to proceed, once cloture is invoked, to the cloture on the start treaty. we've made, from my observatio observation -- kind of an outsider watching all this good work of senator kerry and lugar -- i think we've made some real progress on this and i do hope this matter can pass. we're going to work on that as long as it takes. and as i explained to a number of democratic and republican senators today, we're going to work on it tomorrow, we're going to have a secret session tomorrow in the old senate

chambers at 2:00. and then we'll come in tomorrow night and continue to work on it. we can work on it, of course, all day tuesday and forever -- and for however long it takes. it's extremely important. as everyone knows, senator wyden is sick. he's going to surgery at 10:00 in the morning because of a situation that's been in the press. he has prostate cancer. we wish him, his wonderful wife, and his twins the very, very best. he's very confident. he's getting the best care in the world, and i -- i am also certain that he's going to be just fine. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate complete its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. on mop, december 20. that following the prayer and the pledge, journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, that following any leader remarks, the senate proceed to executive

session and resume consideration of the new start treaty. that at 1:30 p.m., the senate recess until 2:00 p.m. and then meet in closed session in the old senate chamber. following closed session, the senate return to the senate chamber and reconvene in open session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: tomorrow the senate then, as i indicated, will resume consideration of the start treaty. senators are encouraged to come to the floor to offer and debate their amendments. roll call votes are possible before and after the closed session. as i said, mr. president, i if i didn't, just make clear again, we must complete the funding resolution on tuesday because at midnight the funding runs out for our country. so we'll have those cloture votes tuesday unless we can expedite them with unanimous consent prior to that time. so, mr. president, if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous orderment -- previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

my business, bank, real estate, insurance policies are all swept airport. -- swept away. our resources are nil at present. perhaps my situation is no different than hundreds of others. however, a man who knows what it is to be up and down can fully appreciate the spirit of one who has gone through the same ordeal. you are to be congratulated for your benevolence and kind offer to those who have experienced this trouble such as the writer is going through. no doubt you will have a happy christmas as there is more happiness making someone else happy than receiving.

a couple days later check arrived for $5, and he wrote a thank you note. mr. dear mr. b. very dot. permit me to off my thanks for your kind remembrance. this came in very handy and was much appreciated by myself and family. it was put to go use, paying for two pairs of shoes for my girls and other little necessities. i hope some day i have the pleasure of knowing to whom we are indebted for this very generous gift. at present i am not of employment, and it is very hard going. however, i hope to make some connection soon. i again thank you on behalf of our family, and an earnest wish is you have a most happy new year. this is not a frank capra.

this isn't "it's a wonderful life" and not every story ends hap limit the man who had 1200 cars could barely afford bus fare, and ended up working as a, which in a factory and dying at a relatively young age of pan crow -- pancreatic cancer. he passed down to his children a tool chest for building model t fords. that tool chest resides with his grandson jeffrey, and jeffrey enjoys a lifestyle much like george did. he had a home in oregon and a home in south carolina. he is a skin diver and has a fabulous collection of ancient coins, and the drives a mercedes and a porsche, no ford.

one other footnote. that wonderful showroom that took up a city block in canton, it went through many different incarnations down through the decades for years now, by sheer luck, it is a classic car museum, and right in the middle of it is a mottle -- model t ford of the exact vintage that george sold. my grandfather promised the letter writers he would not identify them, and i just did. so i want to tell you first that all but one letter in my book is accompanied by a release from family descendent of the letter writer. there is one instance in which there is not a release, and i perhaps will try to account for that. but there is this letter, and i

just used the fir name, -- first name, and let me read this snippet from the letter. i'm a poor woman with a sick girl, trying to work and help keep home for a crippled sister and myself. we're one of the thousands of unfortunate families who have seen better days, now too proud to ask for charity. this is one of the poorest christmases i ever had. if i thought this would be printed in the papers, i would rather die of hunger first as i haven't been a begar always. i hope for better days for my family and others like us. she was an immigrant from ireland in 1880, and found it no easier now. because of what she wrote in the letter, i couldn't bring myself to identify her.

now, i want to read you a letter from howard summers. and it conveys something of the resourcefulness and the ends to which people would go, as i picked up the morning paper, count myself and my wife more worth the have only had a few jobs here and there, and here are the jobs my wife and i would do before asking for charity. pickingberys in the season and telling them as late as 12:00 at night. picking cherries on the share, and selling our share. my wife had to climb to the top of the highest trees as i am lame and cannot climb. we started as early as february to dandy lions to sell, and sold

them until may or until people would not buy them any longer, as they were too tough to eat. our wintertime job is gathering sassafras, which is a lot of hard work and not much money in it. the last six or eight months, i have been selling liquid solder, pills, and sturdy pencils in nearby towns. i found that selling house-to-house is a hard charge as scarce as money was. as far as clothes is concerned, i have had to buy a few things for myself as i had to meet the public, but my wife has not had a coat in seven years, and her last pair of shoes were bought in 1929. the coat is not fit to wear. we have always kept an old car, the only way we had to get our wood and coal and take us to country to pick our berries.

this is enough said but could i sit and write for hours, but three pages is enough. if you have read and it don't feel we're worthy of your donation, secretly, as you promised, please destroy this letter so no one will know but you and i, so, goodbye, and good luck. and we are living in hopes that good luck comes our way. howard summers. now, this is an incident where i actually did use the person's name without permission. i'll try to explain why. i don't know if i can justify it or not. howard summers also never recovered from the great depression. he work as a handyman, died relatively young. his wife died before him. a couple thing is should tell you. that letter, you heard the weariness in the tone. he was 28 when he wrote it.

okay? and he left no heirs. they had no children. all that survives of howard summers is this letter. and i took it upon myself to include it, because i thought that to some degree it gave meaning to what he experienced and endures. i could be criticized for that. but that was the editorial decision i made. now, the next letter -- i want to get into a couple of the children's letters, because, to me, -- they're not necessarily from children but affect children. this one is from a woman named edith may. edith may was 39 years old when she wrote this, and the lived on

a tumble-down farm, and she was concerned she wouldn't be eligible for the gift because the wasn't in canton proper. some of these pages are eight or nine pages long. the those days there were no therapy groups. people didn't go to psychologists and they didn't unburden themselves to their spouses because they didn't went to add that weight to what their spouses or children were carrying, and this was the first release they had to speak of what was on their minds. that being said, this was from edith may, written december 18, 1933, the same day the ad came out. and she had three young children. they lived on this farm, and she wrote: maybe i shouldn't write

to you, not living right in cap ton, but for some time i have been wanting to know somebody who could give me some help. we have known better days. four years ago, we were getting $135 a month for milk. they had milk cows. now, saturday, we got 12. this 12 has to go as follows. pay for the gas to haul the milk. get shopping. pay for coal. during the cold spell, buy an axe to make wood. buy a tire for a dollar. and i had two dollars to buy groceries. imagine, five of us, for a month. if i only had five dollars, i would think i am in heaven. i would buy a pair of shoes for my oldest boy in school. his toes are all out and no way to give him a pair. he was just six in october. then i have a little girl, who

will be four two days before christmas, and a boy of 18 months. i could give them all something for christmas, and i would be very happy. up to now, i haven't a thing for them. i want to jump ahead to how this letter ends. at it one of the more memorable endings of any of the letter is read. and, oh, my, i know what it is to be hungry and cold. we suffered so last winter, and this one is worse. please do help me. my husband don't know i am writing, and i haven't even a stamp, but i'm going to beg the mail man to post this for me, obliged, yours truly, mrs. edith may. the letter was delivered without a stamp. it found its way into the suitcase. and there are a couple of things about this writer that i think you should know.

she complained about the cold. she was a jamaican. she didn't know what the cold was when she was growing up. she had been a governess in jamaica, and she had struck up a pen paul relationship with an african-american, a grandson of a slave, and through the mails they had fallen in love, and he had gone to jamaica to meet her, and there they married, and he -- her back to the farm in canton. that's why she complained about the cold. i know this because i found their daughter, feliz, and felice told me two things i want to share with you. first, in her family, skunk was the smell of money. that's what she told me. i said, pardon? and she said, father trapped skunks and salt the pelts, and we new he was successful even

before he got home. [laughter] >> no explanation needed. and on occasion, he would rave at the door, blinded, his eyes swollen shut from having been sprayed directly in the eyes. and her mother would wait with a pail of water to cleanse his eyes. that was one story she shared with me. her birthday was two days before christmas, december 23rd and birthdays and christmas meant nothing in this household. they did the chores and went to bed. felice said she never went into town and saw the city lights of christmas. only on one occasion did she see the lights. one day, before her birthday, after the cores were done, they went into town, and her mother took her to a five and dime to the back of the store where the toy section was. and her mother said to her, felice, your choice.

you can have a dolly or you can have this little wooden horse that had a pull string and was on wheels. and felice chose the horse. and it became her favorite, and only story-bought gift. and she used to pull that little wooden horse all around the farm. and today, felice raises miniature ponies. and in the course of our conversation, she said, you know, i never understood how that one birthday we could leave the farm and buy that horse, and now i do. it was your grandfather's gift. okay? now, i'm a pretty decent reporter. i spent a couple of years tracking down these descendents, and i was doing pretty well.

but there was one letter-writer named helen, whose descendents i could not find, and i used all the tricks i knew. in pursuit of these descendents, i used the 1930 census, i used city directors, death records, cemetery records, obituary, city criss-cross directors, i could not find a descendent for helen palm. and the deadline was looming, and my editor -- finally i had to get the back to him. so i turned in the book, and it was edited, and it was done. and i had a couple of spare hours one afternoon, and i decided, heck, i'm going to try once more to find a descendent for helen palm. and with the help of the

genealogical branch of the canton, ohio, library, i managed to track down a daughter named janet. finally. i was interviewing her about her mother helen. i asked her where she was born, where she grew up, when she married, i was about to ask, when she passed, and she said, would you like to speak with her? of the 150 letter-writers, only one is alive. the last one i found, after the book was done. i persuaded the editor to open the book up again, and he did willingly, and so i called helen palm, and asked her about this, and she remembered the letter. she was 14 when she wrote it. she was 91 when i interviewed her.

what i'm about to show you is a picture of helen palm today, holing a picture of helen palm about the age she wrote the letter. ... put it under her feet to keep out the cold.

i see a lot of head shaking because people know ackley what i'm talking about. she went out and bought herself a pair of black patent leather shoes and then, because $5 went so far then, $5 was closer to 80 or $100 today, she bought something for her sister and her brother and then she took, just as she said she would in the letter, and i'm going to read you a letter, she took her parents of for the evening. okay? christmas week. this is her letter. and in those days, 3 cents for the newspaper was 3 cents more than people had. so they would borrow it or they would read it from the neighbors, and this is how her letter starts. dear sir,, when we went to the neighbor to bar the paper i read your article. i am a girl line of 14. i am writing this because i need clothing and sometimes we run out of food.

my father does not want to ask for charity. but as children would like to have some quoting from christmas. when he had a job, us children used to have nice things. i also have brothers and sisters. if you should send me the money, i would buy clothing and by the christmas dinner and supper. thank you. helen. isn't that wonderful? so i'm going to give you a couple of footnotes to all of this and then i'm going to open up. the first footnote as that i got this crazy scheme in my hand and as i was working on this book that i wanted to thank these people who trusted me with their stories and allowed me to publish the letter seemed such, and i decided i wanted to bring them all together and so i sent invitations quite literally across the country to the descendants of the letter writers to gather together in a theater in canton ohio where they and their parents had gone

to escapes the darkness of the great depression for a nickel matinee called the palace theater and sure enough, they came, and they came by the scores. and a few weeks ago in canton ohio, we had between 400 to 600 people in the theater and they came on stage about a dozen of them and read from the letters and talked about what became of their families. helen was on stage at 91 but she was a young one. did he was 98 and she was hoisted up by a her two sons who were former marines and read from her father-in-law's letter and was a remarkable evening. i want to show you what it meant to my home town if you can read this headline on the front page.

in night to remember. betty who is 98 told me it was the highlight of her life. afterwards i hosted a banquet in their honor where their parents had eaten, so that is 1 foot note, but the other, to other footnotes, there was a musical group that contacted me a couple of years ago. i had written for "the new york times" about the story in the composer contacted me and said i want to write a suite of music around these letters may i do so? and we talk back and forth and lo and behold we did it. beautiful music. the group was called red rock randa, the classically trained and they came to canton to perform their letters. their songs are based on the lyrics of the letters and received no fee and paid for part of the way into canton. the six of them flew a in and

filled in is the composer. his music has been performed in carnegie hall. he's quite distinguished. and the night before he left for canton she received an envelope in the mail the day before. he opened it up and there was a cashier's check and a note inside that said this is to help pay for you and the other musicians to go to canton to perform. please give my best to my grandson, and beaver dod and was drawn on the salt lake city bank. one final footnote on thanksgiving day of this year, three gentlemen in canton ohio who are not known, they are anonymous, decided they would repeat beaver dod's get so they took out an ad in the repository offering to help 150 families in

the city adjusting for inflation instead of $5, $100 for every family. $15,000, and the people who were appealing for the help were to write to beaver, care of canton repository. today hundreds of letters have come, others have come forward with donations at least 5,000 more at last count so it's now up to 203 families will be helped and that's where we are now. it shows the power of small gift from long ago. with that i would like to think you and i open it up for discussion and questions. [applause] questions? thoughts, comments?

>> of all the people that you've interviewed, what were the various reactions you got from them so i would assume in some instances they were very happy to talk about it and other instances very reluctant. you did a jury nice presentation. obviously you're a professional anyway. >> that's a great question. the of one common denominator is almost every case where i share the letters the people sobbed and i needed to provide a couple of minutes to gather themselves. that was the common response i would say nine become 95% of the cases the people could not speak after hearing the the letter to the that is for one of two reasons. one because they didn't know what their parents had gone through, their parents shielded them and suddenly the became aware of what they had endured and how much they get been protected, and the other reason is the new exactly what their

parents had gone through and this brought it back. the vast majority of folks that i work with on this, the families, were powerfully moved and delighted to have this. to hear the voices of their loved ones but it wasn't universal. there were a few cases where it wasn't that way and i will tell you very quickly there were some instances a lot of families disintegrated in this period. you have a choice of parents sometimes of seeing your kids go to bed hungry or breaking of the family and placing them in orphanages and children didn't understand what was happening to them and there were children who felt abandoned. some of them found themselves in orphanages and they didn't understand and still don't understand and they did not want to hear even from a parent that was gone. there were few instances of that. there were several instances in

which parents were in prison and their children didn't know, and these were depression in mates, they were not pardoned criminals. they were people faced with the choice between feeding your kids or crossing the line. and i am not going to stand here and tell you i can stand in judgment of them. i can't. i have two sons and if they were hungry i'm not going to tell you what i would do, and the people who did will go to jail never went back once they got out. so, in some cases that came as a shock to the children and the grandchildren but on a cushioned by telling them exactly what i just told you this wasn't a reflection on a lack of character that even my grandfather had committed fraud and created bogus documents and i promised in the book would put

this in a context people wouldn't stand in harsh judgment and i got letters from those children, grand children, for making good on my promise. the overwhelming majority of people that i work with to do this book were grateful to have these letters brought back. it meant a lot to them. other questions, thoughts, comments, please. >> from what you said about your grandfather he wasn't a wealthy man and the money was a lot of money. what ever happened to him after he gave this money away? >> good question. he was not a wealthy man that he was quite comfortable at various points in his life and at 29 he was in bankruptcy court along with the rest of the country.

for years leader in the 33 he was sitting pretty relative to most folks in his town. he had a clothing store called folks close and that is the source of the money that allowed him to do this. at 37 he was in bankruptcy court again. like the rest of the country there were two big waves in the great depression and he wrote them both. one with everyone else. but he lived a very comfortable life and i wouldn't suggest otherwise but he had the same setbacks' folks in that generation had. i will tell you also he had a giving heart and in 1940 when the germans were bombing the brits in london and hitler was on the move and i mentioned in 33 was the first gift he anonymously sent codes to british citizens and christmas time to keep them warm and in the pocket of each coat he wrote a note about what democracy meant to him. so this was a guy who both

understood what was happening in the world and have feelings and wanted to make a difference in a small way. in the era of t.a.r.p. and billion dollars bailouts, i think people are hungry to see that individuals can make a difference and that small gestures have real power to read a lot of times we feel the big things don't seem to make that much difference but the little things to. this is about community, about caring, making connections and seeking nothing in return, so that is the power of it. and this gift which is so small and so long ago my book is now being translated into mandarin and published in people's republic of china and korea and published in south korea and italian and italy and other places. so there's a universal message all human beings can identify

with this. we understand the power of the small gifts of one star purer and not motivated by self aggrandizement. other questions or comments, please. >> i want to ask what impact this revelation has been to your grandmother and to your own family. i mean, it is a wonderful life kind of wonderful thing i'm very happy for you. thank you for sharing the message. >> my grandmother passed away. it's the impact of my mother and her sister and my aunt, the two girls that are still alive, barbara passed away, so rates the ver and the dot still alive. by the way, ver and the dot, my

mother is 82 now and dhaka is i don't know, 79 doherty and they are as we speak in the amazon so they are doing okay. [laughter] my mother is still working, she's a travel agent and has gone to the amazon. i said this phrase before but it's true. this is on the highlights of their life having the story brought out. it's that important to them. my aunt dorothy said to be second only to the day she was married this was the happiest time of her life because of this book, so i think that is what it has meant to them and to my whole family, my cousins and others came together for this event, and at the end where i brought to the defendant's together i had the descendants of the letter rise.

there was electricity in the air, so that's what it meant. >> can you talk a little bit about the differences and similarities between the depression and the current economic crisis? >> that is not a softball question. the difference between the hard times and the difficult times today. well i think for 15 millions the difference is a lot more pronounced. if you are one of the 15 million without a job or any of those that depend on the 15 million, the difference is seem to pale i suspect by the similarities. but that being said i feel that we live in a different world and we are a different breed. americans are different today from 1933 the way we see the world and the way we view government and each other, our

neighbors on families, communities is entirely different. in 1933, pride ran so deep people would not accept charity and the men have the luxury of holding on to their pride even as their children went hungry and the mothers didn't. the mothers felt i think that was their responsibility to feed the children even more than the father's and so it tended to be the mothers to for these letters, not exclusively, but the women couldn't afford to indulge their pride. today, there is no stigma attached to the unemployment. this has stigma attached. we talk about unemployment benefits as if there's an advantage to being unemployed. it's a kind of approvers phrase, unemployment benefits. that was a anathema to the people in 1933. there was no government structure to hold the people of the christmas of 33.

the new deal was a barely glimpse of roosevelt's eis. the association was to come. and in fact, americans probably were not ready and would not have accepted it at the time the letters were written and the spirit of america was redefined in this period because it was in this exact period that even the most self-reliant came to realize the limits of the individual and came to realize that it wasn't a character dillinger you couldn't find a job. they used to talk about the poor, they stopped talking about this period because of good buddy was out of work and had nothing to do with a lack of character so people started to realize it's something larger than themselves did not intervene the entire country would collapse and that opened

the way i think for the new deal if it were not for this kind of incredible catastrophic experience redefined the way we view ourselves. pride was a luxury nobody could afford by 33, four years into the depression. there was just something was too fast, and so i think it is a big difference and also, definitions of poverty are radically different. i mean, i have to be careful because i don't want to offend anybody. i lived in china for a year, 25 years ago and i lived very well and comfortably but also very simply. concrete floors, pretty simple, bicycle, not car. five was in calcutta 25 years ago. that's poverty. if you have a tv and a car that

isn't the poverty we are referring to in other parts of the world. it's all relative, and i think that is a part of it, too. so i think in a way, and here is where i get thin ice and i can hear it cracking and sign move to this statement as much as we cherished prosperity, not everything that it brings is a good and we sometimes lose perspective on what is important and become materialistic and less appreciative of the basics of life and i think that is something of a difference in the character of our people and our generation today from 1933 and i think to some degree there is a realignment of the value going on right now because of what we are experiencing which it doesn't mean anyone should welcome what's happening now but

it might mean the legacy of the great depression is getting a kind of booster shot. other thoughts or comments? >> you've reminded me of something i remember reading in the book sea biscuit and in the movie there was a very wealthy family that they showed when they fell on hard times the oldest boy was just given a suitcase and said we can't take care of you anymore you have to fend for yourself. this was my daughter who thought of the question, is there any talk of a movie or do you think it would make a good movie?

>> self-interest blinds me. [laughter] i will tell you this, i'm not going to make another nickel or dime if everyone in here by is a thousand copies. i am not kidding you, i got an advance, it was a wonderful advance. i'm not going to make another dime that we but i want people to read it. the thing about the movie is it in large is your audience even more and brings people to the book. so i would love to see the movie for that reason, and there are movies and there are movies. some of them take a great political and some sugar degree of fidelity and our wonderful and if it were the latter i would welcome it and i would be delighted so i think it would depend on in whose hand this is and what was done with it, but yes, i would basically love to

see it, of course. i believe in the story, i believe in these letters. i just think this is a of the formation of the american identity and character. this is where the good best generation came from come out of the depression. wasn't out of the second world war. was already there. people that went through these folks went through in the 30's came out of it resourceful, understanding the nature of self sacrifice, the importance of collaboration, but as with the greatest generation was about, the hallmark. so anything that illuminates that i would be for it and certainly the movie would do that. are there any other comments or questions? thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information about

this book and author ted gup, visit asecretgiftbook.com. sorl harold is the author of the artu and politics of science. politif welcome to the program. how did you come up with the >> inew athat book? >> i knew a book that was simply given the scientific title would not be very attractive and second, as a scientist i know that science had artistic features and strongly linked too politics. my own white has been engaged nt not only in science but in the arts and in the politics of doing science.e, so whnteres what is interesting to moste people about what i do we and the way in which science is conducted and the way thethe

political process influences science in the those are thence. topics ii enjoy reading about.. >> he went to an hearses an went english major.fere describe your transfer intoengl. >> is a complicated thing but i was originally going to be a doctor, went to college and fell in love with literature, started graduate school and became disenchanted with fact, went back to medical school and at the age of 28 was compelled by the vietnam war to provide government service which i did at the national institutes of health where i learned that researches even more exciting than medicine. then devoted my life to sign seven mack. >> what will fans of science learn about politics from reading your book and welfare is a politics learn about science? >> question. people who simply admire the scientific process will begin to realize how important and interesting and difficult the

interface between science and the public cares and pays for it and congress that oversees a candy. those interested in politics will see a political action does influence the scientific process. science depends on wealthy people to a certain extent but depends much more heavily on the way the government supports and pays for science and as a political process we have to encounter directly whether stem cells research or thinking about how to improve the nation's health or simply providing funds for scientists of the nih and the national science foundation to do their work. >> you're book is laid out in four parts, becoming a scientist, doing science, political science, and continuing controversy is. why did you lay it out that way? >> the things people would care about, why are you a scientist, and, in fact, what i'm pointing

out in that section is you don't have to thank you are a scientist from the third grade. you can have -- america is forgetting and allows a prolonged adolescence. i think people need to understand you pick a town in scientists in your late 20s. i wanted to devote to, how much to say about the science i have done, technically complicated and i didn't want to insult the audience by watering it down but i wanted to take a tried and follow it to looking at one aspect of my career that was frankly important because it led to a nobel prize and the discovery of genes and pouring in cancer. i wanted in that section to trace of both my own activities as a scientist and link fact to a very important social problem mainly can serve. then because in a sense there was a chronology to this i did most of my scientific work and not all before i became a

government leader, i wanted to talk about being the director of nih, running a large agency, to do science with public money and explain what the complex are between society and science and how they get resolved. in the last section of the reason i moved those out was i wanted to spend time talking about how we publish our work, how the stem cell controversy arose, how we are approaching the development of science have better health and poor countries, and those became sector as essays that address in greater depth i could have done in the narrative, issues that all scientists must think about. >> your mom had breast cancer and i want you to tell how that influenced you as a researcher and scientist. >> certainly was an influence. i was at the nih working on the genetics of bacteria. i learned that model organisms

like bacteria can to just about him in disease but also as a doctor and a son with a mother battling this is the use i wanted to feel it was somewhat more connected to the problem. i don't think that was the only reason, not that they chose to do work about cancer, but i saw an opportunity in my thinking about cancer as a problem mainly we didn't understand how a normal cell became a cancer cell and there were a couple new tools having to do with how we measure dna and rna, some with viruses that cause cancer in animals that led me to believe this huge medical problem that affected my family would be amenable to some solutions by taking advantage of these opportunities to do interesting science. >> this is based on lectures you gave in 2004 at the new york public library. tell us about t a