defending women and claire dalton's tenure and the battle of harvard and other cases she worked on as a lawyer and advocate for women. >> pamela maccoll is the director for publicity for beacon press. this isbooktv on c-span2. ..

in his book the president is a sick man matthew recounts the secret surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from president grover cleveland in june, 1893 trail of the worst economic moments in american history. mr. algeo talks about his book with an audience at the museum of american finance in new york city. it's about 55 minutes. >> i'm david, president of the museum of american finance. welcome back to the luncheon and learning series and to the university of central oklahoma. thank you for coming. please join us again everyone next week on the 26th we are

going to continue the lunch and learn a series of the director of the archival melanie has been. should be fascinating. this is a historic banking house again a week from this thursday. in the defendant 24 upcoming we will be screening they're rediscovering to a alexander hamilton. this is the pps document recently released and questions can be answered because the producer director will be in the house. now turning attention to today and matthew algeo and the president is a sick man this is mathews third book. his second, harry truman's excellent adventure which traced the trip in 1953 that got a lot of great press, and in 2009 the "washington post" called it one of the best books of the year. and additionally before that he wrote a book about four years

and football and the steeples which was a combination of the pittsburgh steelers and the philadelphia eagles during world war ii, another interesting book. he's got a very eclectic background not just an author or a journalist, but let me tell you some of the things he has done. he has been a hot dog vendor at a traveling circus. he's been a halloween costume salesman, he's been a gas station attendant, a convenience store clerk and all this is going to put him in good stead because in two months he's moving to mongolia with his wife who's a foreign service officer taking a position so that should be pretty interesting and very importantly, he is a friend to this museum and a member of it and it's my pleasure to introduce matthew algeo. [applause] you make it sound much more interested than it is, my life. it's good to be the museum of finance. for a couple of reasons.

one is the fantastic museum and i've been coming to the museum for a few years now but more importantly when i was researching the book, the museum was very helpful in answering my questions and i would have frantic questions like how many grains of silver were in a silver dollar in 1870 coming and this is the only place you could send an e-mail with that urgency and get it answered within an hour. so it was very helpful to me the museum of american finance and i am a proud member that's why i got in for free today. [laughter] before i talk about grover, who is a very interesting person, i should probably tell you a little bit about a much interesting person the would be me. as david said my wife as a foreign service officer so we move around a lot. i -- my name is algeo. everybody thinks it's vitale in. it's actually irish. the o is on the wrong end, i know.

my grandparents were from the north of ireland, and actually of irish citizenship, and i spent a year in ireland back in the 90's as a freelance reporter, a freelance reporter i should do this because it largely consisted of drinking a lot of your four year but there was something interesting i found out about having an unusual irish name i had to get an identity card and so i went to the irish equivalent of the dmv and they are very organized. they have to read lines and it was according to the first letter of your last name and the first line was last names beginning a through l and the second was mick to o and the longest line was o commesso with an unusual lastname in ireland there were certain advantages to that. i am the youngest of seven which is why i'm avoiding eye contact with you. i found it was better to keep my head down. [laughter] i did grow up in a house full of

readers. my parents were prolific breeders. they were not sitting around reading franchot's acidulous or anything. my dad liked michener. i used to say he would read by the pound. my mom liked the true crime and biography and when i was a kid would always be embarrassing riding the train into the city with her because she would be reading something like the i-95 killer and on the front cover there would be somebody stabbing somebody. i was like can you just put it in a newspaper or something but i was lucky to grow up in a house like that. i ran into a friend from high school a few years ago and he said whenever i went over to your house in high school your parents would just be sitting in the living room reading, no tv, no radio, no nothing and i always thought that was weird. but now that he has kids of his own i think that he appreciates the was a good atmosphere to grow within and fostered my love of books. i went to college in

philadelphia at the university pennsylvania, graduated 1988 with a degree in folklore and any other majors here today? [laughter] david went through the list of other occupations i've had. i've obviously shows in many small enough lucrative occupations including writing these non-selling best books. but folklore especially was in on lucrative, and i still remember looking at the want ads in the philadelphia inquirer every sunday. it would have been right between floors and forklift operator if i remember correctly. but finding no such jobs i moved to seattle and drifted into public radio to republic radio of course those are the stations way on the left of the dial. [laughter] like 89 to 91, around there and worked it public radio stations in st. louis, seattle. i was in minnesota for a while, went to maine for a while.

2005i went to los angeles and got a job the public radio program called marketplace, a good program, and it was around this time my wife took the foreign service exam and passed and was offered a position in the u.s. foreign service so we were in a bit of a quandary as to who would be the breadwinner, her or mechem and after several rounds of voting it was still one to one. and somehow i was managed to gain a controlling share in the firm and eventually she took the position of foreign service and became the breadwinner allowing me to look on this lucrative career so we wouldn't to africa and the first was about the philadelphia to pittsburgh steeples team that was short of players during world war ii that they had to merge the steelers and the eagles and they became the steeples, the quarterback had a perforated eardrum was blind in one eye and oldsters

the backfield so ragtag misfit kind of punch but what i try to do in that began to the other books is to take a small and unusual event in american history and expand on it to talk a little bit more about the time that each and takes place, and hopefully i've done that with this book. the president is a sick man. even i have to look at the subtitle to read it. in the supposedly a virtuous grover cleveland survives at sea and the newspaperman who dare to expose the truth. thank you for coming, everybody. [laughter] actually it's funny we are trying to be evocative of a long 19th century titles books would have been the true and count did a fair account and this is the short version of the subtitle. we found out the data base for booksellers today have a limit on how many characters you can have in the title of your books. we had to reduce the title with

you can't imagine that. i've always been interested in the story. i'm kind of a presidential history buff and fight for several grover cleveland biographies. how many here have read several grover cleveland biographies? i always knew this basic story that grover cleveland had had a secret operation to remove a cancerous tumor from his mouth. but we come and join your lunch while i talk about grover cleveland's cancer stumer. [laughter] and i never really thought much more about this, but ten years ago i went to a museum in philadelphia, another fine museum and it's a museum of medical history. they have all kinds of unusual things. they have a chief justice marshall's bladder stones. if you ever have a hankering to see that. they've got a piece of the brain of charles capito who was the guy that assassinated garfield and they have the tumor that was

removed from grover cleveland's mouth and 1893 of the operation in a boat and so that really triggered when interest in the story and the fact the tumor was still around and somebody thought maybe this is a good thing to keep to read one of the doctors to perform this operation donated the tumor and kept it and donated to the tumor to the museum in 1917 and not only that he would know he was a bit of a safer since he saved the tumor but he also saved all of his correspondence and clippings and lots of information about the operation which of course was intended to be secret, so i realize there was a possibility of doing something about this story, and then as i dug deeper into it, i found it wasn't just the story of this operation. it was the story of the economy at the time, it was also a story about medicine and it's a story about journalism as well. there are a lot of things going on in the 1890's which is a sort of dead spot for me in my

history, you know, the civil war come to the world war ii, world war i may be, but kind of the 1880s and 1890's i didn't know a lot about so it was fun to go back and learn things i probably should have been taught earlier but that you can learn at the museum of american finance, and as the gilded age is what it was called. mark twain and gave it that name that was not intended to be a compliment. it was to be extravagant, and that means stopped the gilded age. the politics were fascinating and there were so many things in researching the book that i talked about in the book that has resonance today. i don't go into this in the book so much, but i like to point out the first burr controversy actually took place in 1881 garfield was running for president and his vice president was chester arthur. by the cut dtv to a good about getting a book on jester

published. you think that cleveland is tough. but the rumors of the time or that chester arthur had been born in canada. his father was an irishman and his mother was canadian from quebec and they emigrated from vermont but the story that when she was pregnant ready to give birth she went back and had the baby there which if true would mean chester arthur was not an american citizen because neither of his parents anybody born in the u.s.. i would point out we do not have the birth certificates long or short form for chester arthur. they put his name in the family bible and said he was born in vermont and i guess that was good enough in 1880 to qualify him to hold the office of vice president and president. grover cleveland who was elected four years after garfield in 1884 always fascinated me for the plain fact, and this is what everybody knows, grover served to non-consecutive terms.

he was elected in 1884, lost reelection in 88 and then came back four years later and won the white house back which is a unique achievement in american politics in the american presidency. so he had to be a pretty good politician. and of course he screwed up the number for the president. he's number 22 and 24, a little aside actually when president obama gave his inaugural address in 2009, she said 44 people have now taken the oath of office and i was at a party with friends and i said no, 43 because grover gets counted twice. shut up. nobody wants to hear about grover cleveland right now. my friends, we were in rome at that time, learned much too much about grover cleveland if anyone should and they are forgiven if they don't buy the book, but you won't be. grover aside from being a great politician, also had the most

extraordinary rise to the white house. in 1881 garfield was elected, grover cleveland was a single guy living in a boarding house in buffalo, a fairly good law practice, was the well-respected and well liked in buffalo but wasn't really active in politics in buffalo, and in four years he became president and it's just impossible to imagine now. we know the name of our next president. we don't know what's going to be but we heard the name at least there's a list of 30, 50, 100 people might be president and the next two or three presidents we heard their name but it isn't the case when grover cleveland was elected. nobody heard of him for years before. he lived a charmed life in some ways. he was born in 1837. 16 he left and moved to buffalo and studied law firm and had no formal education after 16, just self-taught to read and in 1881, they were looking for a reformist candidate to run as

the democratic nominee for the mayor of buffalo. and grover won that election and immediately established a reputation for honesty and integrity. he vetoed a lot of bills and was known as the veto mayor, one of the famous bills is when there was a bill to i think it was established a new sewer system to build a sewer system and buffalo and the city council awarded the contract to the highest bid and the difference between that and the next lowest presumably was to be spread among all the members in the city council, and the grover vetoed that bill and many other bills and quickly earned a reputation for integrity and honesty and in the following year he was elected governor of new york and in two years later in 1884, he was elected president of the united states. so here you have from 1880 to 84 a guy that goes from being a lawyer nobody heard about in buffalo to the governor and finally president. the 1884 election and this is

another one of those things you think things have changed a lot, they haven't changed that much, it was a terribly efficiency election, one of the dirtiest presidential campaigns in american history. it came out during the campaign that grover father an illegitimate child and his response to this was the legendary. he sent a telegram to his friends in buffalo to tell the truth and grover owned up to this. he had supported this child since birth and was still providing for the child and really his reaction to what could bin and a loading scandal turned out to be in a positive thing for his campaign to demonstrate his integrity and refusal to deny the truth. he was running against a guy named james blaine and as the democrats like to say he was a lawyer from the state of maine and it was that kind of vicious campaign it all came down to new

york state. york of the largest number of electoral votes at that time whoever won new york state would win the election it's that simple and a few days before the election he appeared at a campaign in new york and he was introduced by a protestant minister and the minister called the democrats the party of rahm, romanism and rebellion, drunk catholic and disloyal basically. this one the catholic vote to cleveland carried new york by a thousand votes, the 1.1 million so it was an extremely close election, but he 11884. in '86, he finally married, she was a bachelor when he was elected and married a woman named francis who was only 21 of the time. grover was 49 so it was a 28 year age difference. i don't think we'll see another 21-year-old first lady again. [laughter] it's possible. good thing schwarzenegger can't be elected president. [laughter]

francis turned out to be great political asset and everybody loved her. one of the most beloved first ladies in american history and there's a story after grover lost the election in 88 he ran for reelection and lost to benjamin harrison in the electoral vote also grover won the popular vote in 1888 but she lost in the electoral college. we will never see that again. after two and as they were leaving the white house, in 1889 apparently francis told the chief steward just keep everything the way it is. we will be back in four years and sure enough, in 1892, cleveland did win the white house back, and he and frances and now the youngest daughter, baby ruth lived in to the white house. there have been one change while they were gone. benjamin harrison, while the clevelands were, while they were in the white house and cleveland's were away the changeover from gas to electric

and i think they did this some of the cleveland appliances would work. [laughter] buddy to 92 she wins the election and he takes the oath of office in march the inauguration in march of that time and was not a good time to become president and this for the panic of 1893 comes in. nine days before grover took office the railroad had gone bankrupt and the successful rewritten the u.s. just the year before they build a brand new terminal in philadelphia which stood until the 1980's the 1893 the writing went bankrupt and was a bad sign. railroads were hopelessly overbuilt in the 1880s and the 1890's, and this was a speculative bubble much like we've had recently with other and 1890's was railroads. the number of lines doubled more than doubled after the civil war

with a population only grew about 50, 60%. multiple lines running between cities at competing railroads and the bottom fell out. 119 railroads went bankrupt in 1993. and about 20% i believe was the number of railroads in the country, and course all the people had invested stock in the railroads were wiped out, and this sparked panic on wall street and sent the stock market down. there was another thing going on that qtr did it to the panic of 1893, and i won't get into it here size of to say in the book i write about it in sparkling detail it is amazing pros i came up with that it's about the debate over gold versus silver and that is what should our currency be based on. should it be based on gold or should be based on gold and silver. now this all might seem arcane and a little silly to us today

on our currency is based on -- [inaudible] estimate is, nothing. but, the paper, very good paper is though. you could watch it and still use it. but 1983 that the date will the doctor should our money backed by gold or silver, and the country really had since the 1870's and the gold standard it worked simply the government printed bills redeemable for gold so the gift the golden the treasury and if you wanted to redeem your gold certificates because there were known for gold, you could put them in the 1880s and 99 is a lot of states can into the union in the west to bid montana, colorado, nevada, and these were silver lining states. there were to also be a unit of currency in the united states

and they had a lot of clout in congress that can quickly with the senators and representatives and 1893 passed a bill called the silver service purchase act and this required the treasury to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver every month. and print and equivalent of currency for that will this cause inflation, rapid inflation in the united states is oldest currency poured into the markets of the thing was the people in the west for gold mining states they didn't mind this because they could sell their currency to the treasury and the farmers a lot of them were in debt especially in the south still recovery from the civil war. well, inflation, if you're in debt it's actually not a bad thing because of the money you're paying your debt off is, you know, cheaper than the money you borrowed. so, it's not that bad of a thing.

the needed lots of money in their pockets, and of course back east bankers and industrialists who are by and large the people lending the money, they didn't think so much of this inflation because it devalued the money that they had and it really set up a section of battle in the united states. was the most contentious issue between the civil war and first world war this debate over currency and it did divide along sectional lines you had the west and south versus the mark and the east and the north devotees tend to be old people and west and south tend to be silver so the uncertainty also contributed to the panic of 1893 so grover takes office in march and he has a lot on his plate, and by the become france's on his life is now pregnant with their second child as well, so she had a lot of concerns, and it was in many of 1983 that he noticed for the first time a little bump on the roof of his mouth behind the mall or on the left side. and he didn't think much of it

and as we all deutsch he put off having it looked at for a while and he had a lot on his plate and it wasn't until june that finally his doctor, a guy from new york and brilliant, joseph bryant examined the roof of his mouth and bryant had expertise and oral cancer and she determined that and was in fact cancerous tumor. he called it a bad looking tenant. it's funny the word cancer had a stigma attached in the 1980's and the 19th century will into the 20th century and the word itself was often avoided to read newspapers would call it the dreaded disease or that no doctor dare to name these sorts of things so he called it a bad looking tennant and said it should be removed to a cleveland agreed to have the tumor removed but only on the condition of the operation be conducted in secret. of trade it came to be known he

had cancer which was considered virtually a death sentence and 1893 that the market crash, wall street panic and depression would worsen. he had other personal reasons but ten years before ulysses grant died and oral tumor, and his death was a very slow and agonizing death. it was a public spectacle. reporters camped out of his death house on deathwatch. she was fully aware how that happened and cleveland had no desire to become the object of respect to spectacle like that. he was introverted in many ways and didn't want to be the attention for this and so he said i think i should -- we should do this operation in secret and his doctors said okay, fine to read why the doctors would agree to do this is an example of how especially when the patient is a president the president takes the term of treatment what the doctors to be the time and again you see this

in american history where presidents who have some kind as illness or disability don't get the best treatment because their doctors acquiesce to the patient's demand instead of doing what is best for the patient medically and physically. so where do you remove a tumor in secret from the roof of them out of the president in 1893? the white house was ruled out and so was hostile, too many potentials for springing a leak. was clevelan himself that came up with the idea have in the tumor removed on a friend's yacht. he knew a guy named benedict from new york and cleveland in the benedict were old friends and had often gone fishing together and so cleveland decided this would be the perfect cover we can have the operation on board of the oneida and say we are going to sail up to cape cod. cleveland had a summer home, do some fishing in the operation on the boats into this presented a certain problems but

nonetheless, $6 were recruited to perform this operation and the agreed to do it on the boat. and on the night of june 30, 8093, cleveland came to new york and the doctors themselves came to new york. the boat was anchored in the east river and they were ferried under the cover of darkness each of them separately from different peers so nobody would know what's going on. cleveland came on the boat later that night and had some cigars. maybe the cigars were the problem to begin with, had some cigars and then the next day the boat set sail into long island and it was shortly after 12:00 that cleveland went downstairs. there was a small room below the deck that they had converted into a makeshift operating theater and was a very small and cramped room and what they did is there was no operating table to have a chair that they lashed the senator in the room and cleveland came and they cost of his head and neck with pillows. they did have an anesthesia. they used ether primarily in had

much as oxide but they found it didn't sedate the president will enough's of the operation was done under either which incidentally is very volatile compound and operating with this in the close confines of a room below the deck was not the best place to do it. the operation took about 90 minutes and what they did is remove the tumor along with the upper left palette and pretty much of the teeth behind your itunes on the left everything got to get out, as did a big chunk of his upper left jawbone to all of this was taken out in about 90 minutes using fairly well, not fairly but we would consider a rudimentary tools basically chisels and forceps. they had no suction devices. of course there was no means of blood transfusions of blood that he lost the when the means of artificial resuscitation if anything would happen to him either. nonetheless comes on how the

operation succeeded and clevelan survived. they packed his mouth and gave him a shot of morphine and put him to bed for the night. was four days later on july 5th. so the president had actually been missing for four days now over the fourth of july weekend and the cheese expected is back in the 1890's wasn't quite what it is today. the office wasn't quite what it is today. but even then it was a little unusual for the president to disappear for the fourth of july that he addressed his home on the day in massachusetts on the evening of the fifth late at night. none of the reporters were there to greet him or see his arrival were there. probably back at the hotel drinking if i know how reporters operate. so they didn't find out until the next day the cleveland had returned. ..

>> eventually the whispers reached a recorder by the name of the word to was a new course on sir at -- reporter a great time for the newspapers in the 1890's i forget how many daily papers new york had. 20 or 30. everything was very competitive.

e.j. edwards heard the story, the river and found out one of the name of the doctors of the source of the rumor was the dentist to a minister the amnesty share. played well little trick within a fair balance of journalism and the lead on to the dentist that edwards' new more of the story and he did and said they understand and operation was performed on the presence of a cancerous tumor removed and performed on they ought and he figured somebody on the boat must have told you and he went on to spill the beans and named a couple of doctors and on august 29, two months later he published the story in the philadelphia press under the headline the president is a very sick man. nobody believed him because cleveland had developed a reputation for honesty and his spokesperson said this

was a live minnow operation had been performed or no tumor removed. he had merely had a bad tooth extracted which technically was true. he did not mention and the other 44 the pilot or the jawbone. [laughter] the public at this time lettuce building days beating cleveland known as rihanna's president and it almost appears as if he had built up the capital with his reputation for honesty now decided to cash and all of his chips on the one big lie. he recruited some of his friends e.j. edwards was derided as a disgrace to

journalism and come up with one of the great scoops in american history still one of the most detailed accounts of the medical procedure without the patient's authorization and nobody believed him. and it was too bad i think cleveland probably went too far to discredit edwards and it was one thing to keep the operation secret but another to ruin his reputation which she did. the secret house. it held well into the 20th century. cleveland died in 1908 and there was no recurrence of the cancer. this is a significant achievement to have a cancerous tumor removed from somebody in 1893 then have no recurrence was quite spectacular. but nobody knew about it.

but one of the doctors who had taken part in the operation from philadelphia a fascinating man there are three main characters the president, the newspaperman edwards and the doctors team. he graduated med school 1862 than was the commissioned officer working as them that it but later keane was a commissioned officer world war i. he had an amazing career that spans a period of what we would consider medieval medicine. keane was a good baptist and felt badly about the way edwards had been treated. in 1917 he decided to publish an account of the operation and ask permission from cleveland's wife princess she had the baby only about six weeks after the report came out he had

cancer so this help to squash any last out of the president was a sick man. he is making babies. house it can he be? keane asked permission to publish the account of the operation and she agreed after he had been dead many years. francis remarried after grover died and married a princeton professor named thomas preston and was married much longer to him than she was married to grover. she lived a long time and in 1947 she met president eisenhower at a fancy dinner and she was identified mrs. thomas preston it so he had no idea who she was then they started to talk about and said you know, i used to live a washington. he said really quote? where? [laughter] so only then that francis identified herself as a

former first lady but to her credit she agreed there should be an account published of what happened 1893 on the night up. so finally he broke the embargo to publish the account of the operation on the saturday evening post producing he would go to a medical journal to talk about this amazing achievement but instead i interviewed a couple of pathologist researching the book and said why do think keane did this article in the saturday evening post and nodded journal of medicine? >> like all doctors he had a big ego and wanted everybody to know and it was the most popular peat -- periodical in the country so that was a place to brag. the account came out and it did indicate edwards 24 years after the fact as 83

roach finally edwards reputation as a truthful correspondent was vindicated. it was very big news to always wondered about the account that edwards had many years before and was still among the living and was very gratified edwards should be much better remembered than he is but other work in journalism and he worked with jacob riis with how the other half lives and a supporter of stephen crane let him and lion of the things that happen to edwards, his house was burned down 1908 and lost of lifetime of

clippings and notes it would be amazing to read his papers and his thoughts as this happened and came up with the scoop then found himself vilified. fortunately gao has some of the papers so i could kabul together his story through that. the tumor itself, not much to look at why take a piece of land cauliflower although there are 10 of fragments of bone and five teeth one had a gold filling naturally because this blob in the jar tantalized medical and presidential historians because they wanted to know what kind of cancer did he have? that was an amazing

achievement they have successfully remove the tumor so there would be no recurrence for 15 years until he died in 1908. but his children and he had children late in life, his last son died 1995 and i was living in portland maine we went to church and that a woman named margaret cleveland i made a joke about grover and she said he was my grandfather. he was born in 1837 had a son at 60 in 1897 and then when francis was 60 had a dark-- daughter who was margaret so there was 120 years between the birth of mariane per grandfather. they went into the 20th century they did not let it be tested pathologically to determine what type of cancer because grover was up pretty wild guy when he was a bachelor and their rumors

he had a venereal diseases like syphilis and the children were afraid if it can mount and did the testing it would come out that their father had syphilis and it would be embarrassing to them and their father's legacy. not until the 1970's they acquiesced to have the examination conducted and it determined grover had had a very rare kind of cancer called barrick guess carcinoma that is a malignant tumor but did not metastasized it does not. but it has to be removed because it continues to grow and it could grow so large sum exceeding zero or breathing impossible the tumor itself was not even identified until 1948 so those doctors had no idea what this was because it had not even been identified as

a specific kind of cancer but that treatment is what he had to excise the tumor completely. there is no alternative although now they could do reconstructed bone and tissue graft so don't have to walk around with a hockey puck in your mouth and then this explains why grover had gone so long without any recurrence of the cancer sense it does not metastasize. and then whether or not he had syphilis the results are in the book which is now for sale. [laughter] thank you very much if anybody has any questions i will be happy to answer them. [applause]

>> they give for the wonderful talk how did he die eventually? what was the cause of death? >> he retired to princeton and it is a bit of the mystery he complained of gastrointestinal problems and there was some suspicion he may have had an intestinal tumor although since the oral cancer did not metastasize, the intestinal tumor would not have been related but it is a mystery. he was 71 when he died 1908 and the official cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest but does not explain the precipitating causes of that. he retired to princeton. it was interesting. and then became the mascot there.

the students would march to his house and give a cheery and he enjoyed his final time there. >> he the other half of the title is pandemic of 1893 other than there was a real road bubble burst you didn't say anything about that? >> it is covered in the book. there were two major causes of the panic in 1893 which was overbuilding of the railroad and the uncertainty in the currency situation in. it would be hard to overstate how contentious and detrimental this was the debate over gold over silver. that is what really precipitated the panic. people didn't know what would happen with the

currency. would there be inflation lowered deflationary if they stopped making silver dollars? you could have the money famine and that is one of the reasons that this over rights wanted to increase overproduction and toasts over became a form of currency during the periods of great deflationary and money would be almost impossible to find. there were other causes when the real growth went down they took a lot of businesses like companies who made corridor road went out of businesses and each of these towns for the railroad ran through they went out of business. the panic of 1893 lasted until 1897 when the spanish-american war came to give the economy a boost and at the time it was the worst depression in american history. double-digit unemployment more than five years only exceeded now by the great

depression of the thirties. also load during the panic of 1893 with terrible unemployment and inflation, there was no safety net as we have today. and grover was opposed to this and did not believe been paternalism. he said while the people should cheerfully support the government the government should not support the people and this appeals to libertarians today. ron paul keeps a picture of clover -- grover cleveland in his office. it did contribute to his own popularity the end of the second term by some accounts extended the panic although for the first time i think they paid people $1 per day to chop wood there were some programs but most of the relief programs were run by labor unions and churches

and other charitable organizations there was not a support program. it was also exacerbated and it is amazing writing i do. [laughter] it will blow your mind. there was a hurricane hitting the southeast coast in the fall of 1893 and could not have happened at a worse time and devastated georgia and the carolinas. this contributed to even greater problems with the panic of 1893 and there was nothing more no resources to rebuild these areas. there was an interesting confluence of political economic and natural e bends fat made 1893 such a terrible year economically for the country and took about four years for the panic to ebb but you will

like it. [laughter] you may want to get two copies to give one a way. >> what was the makeup of the congress at the time of his operation? was it the lame duck waiting to die? >> that was another problem. for one thing he was a bold man his vice president was adelaide stevenson grandfather of the future candidate and he wanted silver. he was from illinois in favor of using gold and silver as currency and was added to the ticket in 1982 because stood democrats needed to win southern states say you have the situation where the

president and vice president are on the opposite sides of the most contentious political issue and cleveland was adamant stevenson did not know what was going on with his health. he was up the world's fair and heard rumors and immediately headed east and cleveland intercepted with a telegram that said actually are like you to go on a political trip to seattle and 1893 which involves stagecoach, trains, ferries, boats, that puts stevenson out of action for a considerable amount of time. the democrats controlled both houses for the first two years of the second term but the panic had gotten so bad by 1894 republicans took back the two houses. although cleveland it did have the silver purchase act repealed shortly after the surgery the stop the treasury from purchasing 4.5

million ounces of silver but they have accumulated so much so for and those three and a half years and so many sober certificates had been issued, they were issued and valid until 1968. another cool thing about the book looking at these decisions to think they have no relevancy but they do if you hear the echoes one of my jobs as the gas station attendant, even into the 80s you would cease older certificates. they had the blue seal instead of the green seal. it was a republican congress for the second half of the term. >> this is a very good talk. >> you are a very good

listener. [laughter] >> dimension you had a fondness of grover cleveland is that because you think he is a great president or where would you put him? >> he has some of it named after him. [laughter] it is amazing to lose the white house and then when it back and not care the politics will never happen again? it is impossible to conceive to have the presidency lose it then retired to the $200,000 speaking events which is what i am getting paid today ironically but he did not have that there was no pensions for presidents at the time and part of the concern was it was pretty much the only job the could do and retired to new york between the two terms and did some leu earring but

grover was the last of the do nothing president. not meaning that bad but he vetoed more bills, twice as many in the first term that all predecessors combined. he saw his job primarily as keeping congress from passing bad law. he saw that what the executive was supposed to do and he did that as mayor and governor and president. he was a veto president. did not believe an interventionist government which appeals to people even today. he deserves to be remembered how much better than he is. he has said turnpike rest top named after him between exit 11 and 12 northbound. that is about it and this great new book.

[laughter] >> every child who purchases a placemat has day placemat so i think there is a mistake because the pitchers are coming up twice. >> he screwed up the numbering but truman could never understand why grover was counted twice because only 43 have been president. why is the number 44? thanks. [laughter] >> the book is now available in he will be happy to sign a copy for you. [applause]

>> we are standing in the savannas city market, this is the place where the urban slaves would come to sell their wares. on the weekend, they were able to pick from the gardens and come out on sunday to sell their wares. one thing i want to talk about is urban places in savannah was the work force. the institution of slavery was different because there was literally 1 degree of separation in. the enslaved people live where their owners would have lived but a lot of us lived away from their owners.

and 18 no one, it became law that it took an active legislature to free the slaves instead of the last will and testament. so we're really happened. but in savannah the year been slaves became nominal slaves that were slaves in name only. they're masters would hire them out and they would be paid. one example in the 1850's here, where the pastor of the third african baptist church had a butcher shop and was an enslaved man paid the owner $50 a month so he could work at his butcher shop. this building has a very powerful history. on the top floor, you had a slave building.

this was built by a man in 185-43-1857 and the land was valued at $4,500 and by 1857 was $11,500 in value. it has a low grade holding area that is our the enslaved people were captain brought up in chains taken to the third floor. the middle window is where the auction block was. that is where the women would have changed their clothes. after the americans syllable war, he was hearing the screams and cries of the thousands of africans that were taken up to be sold into slavery. he did not live as long as this survived this was that

way for 80 years. meeting an unfortunate death blown up in a steamer and his body brought back here to the city. alexander was selling sell eight -- slaves and then eventually would surrender what else happened if? alexander had a sign out front that said slave mart. the next year, the building became the school for the freed blacks. james lynch came down as a missionary and came into the building to find the actual bill of sale they were selling the slaves turn them over and use them for paper for the students. they marched 400 young black people to this building to

become the first freedman school in this city of savannah 1865. >> i heard there is a new book out an excellent writer andrew porter cutting to the core that nfl very passionate about the times in which we live. this is a book that i just saw call but good jesus and it is