of military spending that raised that of. >> here's the cover of "warfare state" by university of chicago professor james sparrow. why this cover? why did you choose this picture? what is this? >> i think the photograph really captures how americans wanted to paint within the lines of patriotism during the war. if you are familiar with the flag and the stars and bars you note represents federalism and the way in which the several states were brought together within a union. this is a reworking of the patriotic into a more fused unitary centralized emblem of national light improperly emblazoned on the side of the bomber owned by the u.s. military, representing a kind of national unity and the way she holds her hand, painting within the lines captures the way americans talk themselves to internalize their sense of obligation to the government. >> james sparrow, the university

of chicago where booktv is on location, here is his newest book, "warfare state" world war ii americans and the age of big government. .. remove a cancerous tumor from presidents grover cleveland in june 1893 during 1 of the worst economic moments in american history. mr. matthew algeo talks about his book with an audience at the american -- the museum of

american finance in new york city. it's about 55 minutes. >> hi, i'm david cowen, president of the museum of american finance. bagram. welcome back to our lunch and learn series. welcome to the university of oklahoma. the okies are in the house. thank you for coming. please join us again, everyone, next week on the 26. we will continue the lunch and learn series the director of the rothschild art -- archive. again, one week from this thursday. on the 204th, tuesday, we will be streaming the rediscovering alexander hamilton. this is the pbs documentary that was recently released. all your questions about the movie can be answered because the producer, director will be in the house. now, turning your attention to today and matthew algeo and "the

president is a sick man." this is matthews third book, his second, harry truman excellent adventure which traces his cross-country trip in 1953. tell a lot of great press. in 2009 the "washington post" called it one of the best books of the year. additionally before that he wrote a book about the war years and football and the steeples, which was a combination of the pittsburgh steelers and that philadelphia eagles during world war ii, another interesting book. he has a very eclectic background, not just an author, not just 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 has been a halloween costume salesman. he has been a gas station attendant, convenience store clerk. all this is going to put him in good stead because in two months he is moving to one dahlia with his wife who is a foreign

service officer who is taking a position there. that should be pretty interesting. very importantly, he is a friend to this museum and a member of it. my pleasure to introduce matthew algeo. [applause] [applause] >> you make it sound much more interesting than it is, my wife -- life. great to be at the museum of american finance. a couple of reasons. one, made is a fantastic museum that i have been coming to for a few years. more importantly when i was researching the book, the museum was very helpful in answering my questions. i would have frantic questions, how many grains of silver ore and a silver dollar and 8070. this is the only place you can send danielle with that the urgency and get it answered within an hour. it was very helpful to me. i am a proud member. that is why i got in for free today. before i talk about grover, who

is a very interesting person, should probably tell you a little bit about a much less interesting person, that would be neat. as david said, what it -- my wife is a foreign service officer. we move around a lot. my name is matthew algeo. everyone thinks it is italian. it is actually irish. my grandparents were from the north of ireland. actually, i have irish citizenship. as bad a year in ireland back in the 90's is a three let -- freelance reporter. lars the consisted of drinking a lot of beer for your. there was something interesting that i found out about having an unusual irish name in ireland, i had to get an identity card. went to the irish equivalent of the dmv. very organized. three lines. all according to the first letter of your last name.

the first one was less is beginning a-l. the second was make tech of and the third was tmz. an unusual last name. certain advantages to that. and the enlisted seven which is why i am avoiding eye contact with the right now. i thought i was better to keep my head down. i did grow up in the house of readers. my parents were prolific breeders. there were not sitting around reading french existentialism. my dad liked michener. he would read by the pound. my mom like true crime and biography. she loved true crime. always very embarrassing riding the train into the city because she would be reading something like the i-95 killer. on the front cover there would be somebody stabbing somebody. just put it in a newspaper. but i was lucky to grow up in a house like that. the rainy to a friend from high

school a few years ago, and he said, you know, whenever i went to your house in high-school your parents would just be sitting a living room reading, no tv, no radio, nothing. i always thought that was so weird. but now that he has kids of is on i think he appreciates that it was actually a good atmosphere to go up and in boston my love of books. i went to college in philadelphia, the university of pennsylvania. i graduated in 1988 with a degree in folklore. any other folklore major said today? this was -- and david went through the list of other occupations. obviously i've chosen many non lucrative occupations, including writing these non best-selling books. but folklore especially was done on lucrative one. i still remember looking at the philadelphia inquirer. it would have been right between

florissant forklift operator if i remember correctly. but finding those jobs are moved to seattle and drifted into public radio. public radio, of course, the stations that play a left of the dial like 89-91, route there. worked at public radio stations in st. louis, seattle, minn. for a while, maine for a while. two dozen 5i went to los angeles and get a job with the public radio program called marketplace, a good program. was around this time that my wife took the foreign service exam passed. she was offered a position in the u.s. foreign service. bieber in a bit of a quandary as to who would be the breadwinner, her army. after several rounds of voting it was still want to watch the. somehow i was managed to gain a controlling share in the firm individually she ticked position in the foreign service and begin the breadwinner, allow me to

work a little bit on this palm lucrative career. so we went to africa and the first book we did was this book about the philadelphia pittsburgh steals. the nfl is so short of players that they had to murres the steelers and the eagles and became the staples, the quarterback and a perforated eardrum, the center was death and one year, the receiver was blind in one night, lots of losses in the backfield. so ragtag. but what i tried to do with that book and the other books is to take a small and unusual event in american history and really expand on it to talk a little bit more about the times that event takes place in. hopefully i have done that with this book. the president is a sick man. even i have deleted the subtitle to read it. you're in the supposedly virtuous 58 survives a secret surgery at sea and vilifies the courageous newspaper may be derek to expose the truth. well, thank you for coming,

everybody. actually, it's funny. trying to be evocative of the long, 19th century tattles the books would have to my that true and fair account of block, block, block. this is the short version of the subtitle. we found out that the databases 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. i have always been interested in this story. i am kind of presidential history buff. i have read several abcasix -- grover cleveland biographies. how many people here have? but i always knew this story, the basic story that he had a secret operation to remove a cancerous tumor from his mouth. by the way, enjoy your lunch while i talk about his cancerous tumor. i never really thought much more about it, but about ten years ago but to a museum in

philadelphia. it is a museum of medical history. they have all kinds of unusual things. they have chief justice john marshall's bladder stones. if you ever have a hankering to see that. they have a piece of the brain and charles ghetto who was the guy who assassinated crutchfield. and they have in a small glass jar the timber that was removed from through -- grover cleveland's mouth in 1893. and so that really triggered my interest, the fact that the tumor was still around that somebody had thought maybe this is a good thing to keep. an interesting keepsake. and so i talked to the museum. it turns out one of the doctors donated the tumor, captain donated to the museum back in 1917. that only that, well, i guess you would know he was a bit of a saver. he said of his correspondence and clippings and lots of

intimation about the operation which, of course, was intended to be secret. it was the possibility of doing something about the story. and then as a dug deeper i found that it wasn't just the story in the operation but the economy. it was also a story about medicine and a story about journalism as well. there were a lot of things going on in the 1890's, which is sort of a dead spot for me in my history. you know, the civil war, world war two, world war one. but the 1880's and 90's, i did not . it was a lot of fun to go back and learn things that probably i should have been taught earlier but that you can learn at the museum of american finance date. and it was the gilded age is what it was called. mark twain give it that name. it was not intended to be a complement. to gild was to be extravagant, necessarily extravagant. the politics are fascinating. there were so many things in

researching the book and that i talk about that really have resonance today. a don't go into this a much, but i like to point out that the first birthday controversy actually took place in 1880 when garfield was running for president. his vice president was chester arthur. by the way, good luck trying to get a book about chester arthur published. if you think cleveland is tough, what you do the tester author, but the rumors of the time with that chester arthur had been born in canada. his father was an irishman. his mother was a canadian court from quebec who integrated -- emigrated to vermont. the story when when she was pregnant she went back, and had the baby there which if true would mean that chester arthur was not an american citizen because neither of his parents, you wasn't born in the u.s. we do not have the birth certificate, long or short form.

they just put his name in the family bible and said he was born in vermont and that was good enough to qualify him to hold the office of vice-president and president. grover cleveland, elected four years after in 1884, always fascinated me for the plain fact that -- and this is what everybody knows, he served to nine consecutive terms. he was elected in 1884, lost in '88, and came back four years later and won the white house back which is a unique achievement in american politics, the american presidency. the guy had to be pretty good politician. of course you strip the numbering. number 22 in 24 when president obama gave his inaugural address in 2009 he said 44 people have not taken this of the office. i was at a party.

i said no, 43 because grover is counted twice. shut up. no one was to hear about grover cleveland right now. my friends, we were in rome at the time, learned much too much. there are forgiven if they don't buy the book. you will be. aside from being a great politician he had the most extraordinary rise to the white house. i mean, 1880 window phil was elected grover cleveland was a single guy living in a boarding house in buffalo with a fairly good law practice, well-respected and the like to, but really was in active in politics. ended four years he became president. it is just impossible to imagine now. we know the name of our next president. we don't know who is going to be, but we've heard the name. a list of 30, 50, 100 people who might be. probably the next two or even three presidents.

that wasn't the case when grover cleveland was elected. no one had ever heard of him. he lived a charmed life in some ways. born in 1837. he moved to buffalo, studied law and a law firm, really had no formal education after 16, self-taught and lock. 1881 there were looking for a reformist cans it to run as the nominee for mayor of buffalo. grover won that election and immediately established a reputation for honesty and integrity. he vetoed a lot of bills, known as the veto mayor, one of the most famous was when there was a bill to the -- i think it was established a new sewer system, bill the source system in buffalo. the city council awarded the contract to the highest bidder. the difference between that and the next-to-last bid presumably was to be spread among all the members of the city council. grover veto that bill and many other bills.

quickly and a reputation for integrity and honesty. the following year he was elected governor of new york. two years later in 1884 he was elected president of the united states. here you have from 1880 days 1884 to my guy who goes from being a lawyer nobody heard about them buffaloed to mayor to governor and finally president. the 1884 election, and this is another one of those things for you think things have changed, they have not changed that much with the terribly vicious election, one of the dirtiest presidential campaigns in american history. came out during the campaign that grover fathered an illegitimate child. his response to this was legendary. he said the telegram to his friends in buffalo that said simply tell the truth. grover roundup to this. he had supported this child since birth and was still providing for the child. really his reaction to what could have been a debilitating

scandal turned into a piano way a positive thing that devastated his integrity and refusal to deny the truth. the campaign, he was running against a guy named james g. blaine, the continental liar from the state of maine. and it really was that kind of campaign. it all came down to new york state. new york had the largest number of electoral votes at that time. whoever won new york state would win the election. it was that simple. a few days before the election plane appeared at a campaign event. he was introduced by a protestant minister. the minister called the democrats the party of from, romanism, and rebellion, drunk, catholic, and disloyal basically. this is one of the catholic vote, especially in new york city, to cleveland who carry new york by thousand votes. so it was an extremely close

election, but he won in 1984. in 1886 he finally married, still a bachelor when elected. he married a woman named frances folsom who was only 21 at the time. the 28 year age difference. i don't think it will see another 21 year-old first lady again. it is possible. a good thing schwarzenegger can be elected president. [laughter] but france's turn up to be a great political asset. everybody loved. nearly one of the most beloved first ladies. a story that after grover lost the election he ran for reelection and lost to benjamin harrison although grover actually won the popular vote in 1888. he lost in the electoral college. we will never see that again. and as they weren't leaving the white house in 1889 apparently francis told the chief steward there, just keep everything the

way it is. we'll be back in four years. sure enough in 1892 cleveland did when the white house back. he and frances and now their yen-based daughter moved into the white house. there have been one change while they were gone. benjamin harrison while the cleveland or -- while there were in the white house and the cleveland's for wait a changeover from gaston electric. i think they did this so none of the appliances of work. but in 1892 grover was the election, and he takes the oath of office in march. the inauguration's or in march of that time. it was not a good time to become president, and this is where the panic of 1893 comes in. not days before grover took office the railroad had gone bankrupt. one of the most successful roads in the u.s. just years before. they had built a brand new terminal running terminal which

stood until the 1980's. in 1893 it went bankrupt. it was a bad sign. railroads were hopelessly overbuilt and the team 80's and 90's. this was a speculative bubble, much like we have had recently with other things to my real estate and dot com. in the 1890's it was a railroad spirited number of rail lines double, more than doubled. multiple lines running between cities, competing railroad companies. and then the bottom fell out in 1893. 119 runs went bankrupt in 1893. about 20 percent of the number of roads in the country. of course all the people that invested stock in these railroads were wiped out. this release sparked panic on wall street. the stock market down. there was another thing going on that contributed to the panic of 1893. i've won't get into it too much

here suffice it to say in the book are right about it in sparkling detail. it is about the debate over gold versus over. that was what our currency should be based on. based on gold or silver and gold? now, this all might seem arcane and all little silly to us today when our currency is based on -- [laughter] nothing. quality paper, very good paper it is. you would watch it and still use it. but in 1893 the debate really boiled down to shed our money be backed by gold silver. and the country really, since the 1870's, had been on the gold standard. it works pretty simply. the government printed bills that are redeemable for gold. easier to carry bills than gold. they kept the gold in the treasury.

if you wanted to redeem your gold certificate, you could. but then in the 1880's and 1890's a lot of new states came into the union in the west. montana, colorado, nevada. these were silver mining states. the silver mining states began to clamor for silver to also be a unit of silver and -- currency in the united states, and they had a lot of clout in congress, very quickly with the senators and representatives. and in 1890 they passed a bill called the sherman silver purchase act which required the u.s. treasury to buy four and a half million ounces of silver every month and prints and equivalent amount of currency for that. but, this caused inflation, rapid inflation. all this currency poured into the markets. now, the thing was that people in the west to were gold-mining really didn't mind because they could sell their silver to the

treasury. the farmers in the south and midwest, a lot of them were in debt, especially in the south still recovering from the civil war, well, inflation if you're in debt is done a bad thing because the money you pay your debts of is cheaper than the money borrowed. is not that bad a thing. they needed lots of money in their pocket. of course back east the bankers and industrialists who were by and large the people in the money didn't think so much of this inflation because it devalued their money that they had commanded release set up a sectional battle with the united states. really the most contentious issue between the civil war in the first world war, this debate over currency. it did divide along sectional lines. the west and this offers is the north and east. the north and east tended to be gold in the west and the south tends to be silver. and said the uncertainty in currency markets also contributed to the panic of

1893. so grover takes office and has done a lot on his plate. by the way, francis, his wife, now pregnant with their second child. soviet lot of concerns. it was in may at 1893 that he noticed for the first time a little bump on the roof of his mouth. right back behind the mall where on the left side. and he didn't think much of it. as we all do, he put off having elected for a while. and, you know, he had a lot on his plate. it wasn't until june that finally is dr., a guy from new york, examined the spot on the roof of his mouth. and he and some expertise in oral cancers. he determined that it was, in fact, a cancerous tumor. he called it a bad licking tennant. it is funny. the word cancer, cancer had a stigma tested. in the 19th century, well into the 20th-century. in fact, the word itself was often avoided.

newspapers would call it the dread disease or the disease that no doctor dare name, the sorts of things. and so he called it a bad looking tennant and cities should be removed. cleveland agreed to have this tumor removed, but only on the condition that the operation be conducted in secret. cleveland was afraid that if it came to be known that he had cancer, which was considered virtually a death sentence in a 93, that the markets of crash, wall street would panic amend the depression worsened. he had other reasons, personal reasons. skynyrd before ulysses grant had died of an hour of tumor. his death was a very slow, agonizing death. a very public spectacle. reporters camped outside the house on a kind of death watch. cleveland was president when grant died and he was fully aware of how that happened. he had no desire to become the object is. very introverted and just did

not want to be the center of attention. and so he said, i think that we should do this operation in secret. his doctor said, okay, fine. why the doctors would agree is an example of how i specimen the patient is president the patient dictates the terms of treatment, not the doctors. d.c. this time and again in american history where presidents have some kind of illness or disability don't get the best treatment because their doctors acquiesce to the patients' demands 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 the mouth the president in 1893? watch, the white house was ruled out, and so was the hospital. to many potentials for leak. cleveland came up with the idea of having the tumor removed on a friend's yacht. he knew i guy named benedictus, magnate from new york on the yacht.

cleveland had often gone fishing together. and so he decided that this would be the perfect cover. we can have the operation on board. we can just say we're going to sell up to cape cod. cleveland had a summer home. do some fishing, and do the operation on the boat. welcome having an operation on a boat presents certain problems, but nonetheless six doctors are recruited to perform this operation, and they agreed to do it on the boat. on the night of june 30th 1893 cleveland came to new york and the six doctors themselves also came to new york. the bill was anchored in the east river. the doctors were ferried under cover of darkness, each of them separately so no one would know what was going on. cleveland came up the boat. at some cigars. maybe cigar's with a problem to begin with. had some cigars. the next morning to both sets sell and sell them to the long island sound. shortly after 12:00 cleveland went downstairs.

there was a small room below deck that they had converted into a makeshift operating theater. a very small, cramped room. there was no operating table. they had a chair that they latched to the center of the mass that was in the center of the room. cleveland came in. a prop up his neck and head with the los. they did have an st ship. they used to eat there. primarily. they also had five catches oxide, but they found it did not sedate him well enough. a very volatile compounds. they elasticized cleveland. the operation took about 90 minutes. what they did is removed the tumor along with most of his upper left palate and five teeth, pretty much all the teeth behind your itunes on the left. everything behind their got taken out, as did a big chunk of his upper left paula jones --

jawbone. this was done in 90 minutes using what we would consider rudimentary tools, basically chisels and forceps. they had no section devices, of course, at the time, no means a blood transfusion. there's no means of artificial resuscitation. nonetheless somehow the operation succeeded. cleveland survived. the pact is not the cause and gave him a shot of morphine and put into bed for the night. ..

doctors began to hear whispers

that something had happened. and eventually these whispers reached a reporter, a guy by the name of e.j. edwards, and he was a new york correspondent for the philadelphia press. a great time for newspapers, the 1890's. i forget how many newspapers that they had come 20th 30. philadelphia's. and everything was very competitive. e.j. edwards heard this story, this wriggling around, and he found out the name of one of the doctors, the source of this rumor was actually the dentist to have administered the anesthesia. he went to the dentist and played a little track within the fair grounds of journalism at the time. maybe even today. he let on that edwards knew more about the story that he did. he went and said, i understand that the operation was performed on the president and get a cancerous tumor removed and it was performed on benedick shot. the dentists said, well, somebody on the boat must oppose on that and went on to spill the beans and give more information

to edwards to confirmed the operation and and a couple of doctors. on august 29 to about 2 months after the operation edwards publish the story in the philadelphia press under the headline that president, very sick man. the problem was nobody believed him. that is because cleveland, as i said earlier, developed this reputation for honesty and integrity. his spokesperson said that this was live. no operation had been performed, and the tumor had been removed. they said he merely had bad teeth extracted, which, technically, was true. he did not mention the other 14, the pallid, timber, and the jawbone. so the public at this time was inclined to believe cleveland. he had built up this reputation for honesty and was known as the honest president. in a way you all must appear as if he has all this capital and his reputation for honesty and now decided to cash in his chips

on this one big lie. and it worked. cleveland recruited some of his friends in the press, the democratic papers, especially a rival paper in philadelphia called the times to not merely deny the story, but to discredit the story. that meant killing the messenger. and so ej edwards in papers was, you know, derided as a disgraced journalist, a cancer faker, panic mugger. he came up with one of the grace keeps in american history, still probably the most detailed account of a medical procedure performed upon a president without the patient's opposition, and nobody believes him. it was really too bad. i think cleveland probably went too far in discrediting adverts. it was one thing to keep the operation secret, but it was another to ruin this man's reputation, which he effectively did. and said the secret help. impact, the secret held well

into the 20th century. cleveland tied in 1908. there was no recurrence. this was a very significant achievement, a cancerous tumor removed from somebody in 1893 and then have no recurrence of the cancer was really quite spectacular. nobody knew about it. and it wasn't until 1917, finally, up one of the doctors who had taken part in the operation, a guy named team from philadelphia, a fascinating guy in enough himself. three main characters, the newspaperman, and the doctor. he graduated from medical. it served in civil war. a commissioned officer working as a medic. later on a commissioned officer in world war one. it released and this time.

he always felt badly about the way that edwards had been treated. 71917 he decided to publish an account of the operation. he asked permission for cleveland's life. francis had the baby only about six weeks after the report came out that he had cancer. so this helped quash any last doubts about whether or not the president was a sick man. i mean, he is making babies. how sick and needy. so keen ask for pratt princess's permission to publish an account of the operation. francis agreed. francis, by the way, she remarried after a river guide. she married a princeton professor, and thomas preston and was married to him much longer than she was married to grover. a funny and could story

conferences little long time and in 1947 she was seated next eisenhower and the fancy dinner. her place card just identified her as mrs. thomas preston, so eisenhower had no idea who she was. it began chatting. at one point this had a talk about washington. and she said, you know, you still live in washington and eisenhower said really, where? so it was only then that she identified herself as a former first lady. eisenhower was quite embarrassed. whate'er credit she agreed that there should be an account published of what happened in 1893. and so that fall of 1917 he finally broke the embargo and published an account of the operation in of all places the saturday evening post. you would think he would go to a medical journal to talk about this amazing achievement in american medicine and an apology, but he decided to publish it in the saturday evening post. i interviewed a couple people researching the book and asked one of them, why do you think he

did this article and not some journal of medicine? and said it's like all doctors, he had a big deal and wanted everybody to know. the saturday evening post was the most popular periodical in the country. i was the place to brag. he also did it to vindicate efforts, as i said. the cap came out, it did indicate evers 24 years after the fact. he was glad that finally edwards reputation as a truthful correspondent was vindicated. it was very big news among media people had always wondered about this account that entered said written many years before. words was still among the living at the time and was very gratified by this and send keen a letter of praise. edwards should be much better remembered that he is, not just for this, but his other work in journalism, one of the early -- he worked with jacob riis, who, of course, how the other half

lives. an early supporter of stephen crane. let him stay at his apartment when crane was struggling to write red badge of courage. one of the things that happened to edwards, his house was burned down in 1908. burned to the ground. he lost a lifetime of correspondence and clippings in notes. there was no legacy to leave. it would be amazing to read three newspapers and see exactly what his thoughts were as this happened in 1893. he came up with a scoop and then found itself vilified. fortunately yale, where he had gone to school, has some of his papers. i was able to come altogether his story to that. there is another postscript to this story. the tumor itself, which i mentioned is that the museum in philadelphia. it is not much to look at. it is kind of like a piece of flour something although the tumor, ten fragments of bone and five teeth.

one with a filling, gold naturally because cleveland was a gold guy. and this bob, this amorphous blob in this chart always tantalized medical and presidential historians because they wanted to know what kind of cancer cleveland had. this was an amazing achievement in american surgery, american cancer research that they had successfully remove this tumor and that there would be no recurrence of the disease for 15 years until cleveland died in 1908, but there was a problem. cleveland's children, and he had children late in life, his last son, francis, died in 1995. in fact, it is funny, i was living in portland, maine. we went to church and i met a woman in march with -- margaret cleveland. i made a joke about currency said he plans my grandfather. born in 1837. when he was 60 and assigned.

1897. france's company was 60, had a daughter. and so there were 120 years between the birth of margaret and her grandfather. so they lived well into the 20th-century. it would not allow the specimen to be tested pathologically to determine the cause, what kind of cancer was because carver had been a pretty wild guy back in his taste and he was a passenger, and there are rumors he had a venereal disease, specifically syphilis. the children were afraid that if it came out, the did the testing on the specimen that it would come out that their father had syphilis. is to be embarrassing to them and to their father's legacy. it wasn't until the 1970's that they finally acquiesced to have a pathological examination. it determined that cover and had a very rare and of cancer called barrick is carcinoma. it is a malignant tumor, but it doesn't -- i can never say this

word, metastasize. does not metastasize. it has to be removed because the tumor continues to grow and can actually grow so large that it would make eating and eventually breathing impossible. so the treatment for this type of tumor today, and the tumor itself was not even identified until 1948. so the doctors had no idea what this was because it had not been identified as a specific kind of cancer. achievements today would be exactly what he had, you have to excise the tumor completely. there is no alternative. although today they can do reconstructed bone and tissue grafts so you don't have to walk around with a piece of rubber or hockey puck in your mouth so that you can talk in the. and this explained why grover had gone so long without any recurrence of the cancer, it was kind of cancer that does not metastasize. and the test also concludes --

conclusively determined whether or not he did have syphilis, and the results of the tester in the book which is never sell. thank you very much. if anybody has any questions of the happy hansen. [applause] [applause] by setting kristin has a microphone. if anybody has a question, did recover everything so excellently? a, there is a question. >> hello. thank you for the wonderful talk on grover cleveland. how did he die? "was the cause of death? >> 1908, retired. a bit of a mystery. he complained of gastrointestinal problems, and there was actually some suspicion that he may have had an intestinal tumor, all this as the oral cancer that he had doesn't -- keep saying that, metastasize, the intestinal tumor would not have been related to the euro cancer.

a little bit of a mystery. he was 71 when he died in 1908, and the official cause of death, i think, was listed as cardiac arrest. that doesn't really explain, you know, the precipitating causes to that. he retired to princeton. it was interesting. he had never gone to college. he went to princeton and sort of became the mascot. after a football victory holliston's would marched his house and give the chair. he really enjoyed his prophesy preston. >> to resign to bring a microphone over. just a second. >> the other half of your title, the panic of 1893. the you mentioned there was a bubble and burst. is that covered in the book? >> is covered in the book. as i said, there were two major causes of the panic in 1893

which was the overbuilding of the railroads and the uncertainty in the currency situation. and it would be hard tap the overstate how contentious and controversial and the germans and this was to the country, the debate over gold versus over. and the thing that was what really precipitated the panic. people to know what was going to happen with the currency. inflation, deflation. it could be if you would have a money famine. these happened. that was one of the reasons that this overwrites wanted to increase over production until silver became a form of currency. there have been periodic time of great deflation in the country. money would be almost impossible to find. other causes with the overall rose going down. it took with them businesses, things like companies that made pori or rope went out of business.

each of the towns are these your roads pass through, the sla businesses connected with them went out of business. the panic of 1893 really lasted until about 1897 and 98 when the spanish-american war came and gave the economy a boost. at the time it was the worst depression in american history, double digit unemployment for more than five years. only exceeded now the great depression of 1930's. at the time also you have to remember, this terrible unemployment, terror will inflation, with really no kind of safety net as we have today, even the most rudimentary kind. and he did not believe in paternalism. in his second inaugural he said, the people said cheerfully support the government, the government should not support the people. this appeals today to libertarians. ron paul keeps a picture of grover cleveland in his office. so this, i think also will certainly contributed to his

unpopularity. by some accounts it extended the panic. the panic also for the first time produced some semblance of public works projects. it gave people a dollar a day to chop wood. so there were some programs that were beginning, but most of the relief programs during the panic of 1893 or run by labor unions and also churches and other charitable organizations. there really was no kind of government program. the panic was also exacerbated. again, it is just some amazing writing about this panic of 1893. it's really going to blow your mind. it was a hurricane that hit the southeast coast of the united states in the fall of 1893. he could not have happened at a worse time. pretty much devastated georgia in the carolinas. this contributed to even greater problems for the panic of 1893. there was really nothing, there

were no resources to rebuild these areas. so it was an interesting confluence of political, economic, and natural events that created and made 1890 -- sets a terrible year economically for the country. like i said, it took about four years for the past to ebb. yes. you will like it. you might want to get two copies this because you want to give one away. another question up here. >> what was the makeup of the congress of the time of his operation? would it be looked at as a lame-duck? >> that was another problem. for one thing cleveland was a gold guy. his was president was a guy named adlai stevenson he was grandfather of the future of

president to candid. as silver right from illinois and was in favor of bimetallism, that is using gold and silver as currency. he had been added to the ticket at the convention in 1892 to get some balance because the democrats needed to win some southern states. you had this unusual situation where the president and vice-president are on the exact opposite sides of the most contentious political issue of the day. cleveland was adamant that stevenson not know what was going on with the cells. stevenson had heard rumors. at the world fair in 1893 and had heard rumors about his health and immediately headed east to visit him. cleveland intercepted them with the telegram that said i would like you to go on a political trip to seattle in 1893 which involved stagecoaches, trains, ferries, but all sorts of things. that puts him out of action for a considerable time. congress at the time, the democrats control both houses

for the first two years of the second term, but the panic a gun so bad by 1894 that the republicans then took back the two houses. although, cleveland did manage to have the sherman silver act, silver purchase act repealed shortly after the surgery. and that stops the u.s. treasury from purchasing the four and a half million ounces of silver a month. they had accumulated so much silver in this tree and a half years and so many silver certificates had been issued a silver certificates were actually issued. i believe there were valid until 1968. so it was the kind of thing, it was another cool thing about the buck. you go back and see some of these decisions. they don't have any relevance, but the really do in a lot of ways. the echoes of these things 120 years later. i remember, as david mentioned, one of my jobs is as a gas station attendant. you used to see even into the

80's, silver certificates, man. the blue csn of the green seal. it was republican congress for the second half of his term. >> that's a really good talk. >> thank you. you were really good listener. >> thank you. >> you mentioned, of course, that you had a fondness for grover cleveland. is that because you think he's a great president? wrigley put him? >> well, he had a muppet named after him. you have to like grover. just like us said, it's amazing. to lose the white house, come back four years later and when it back. i don't care who the president, the politics is always involved. will ever happen again? it is impossible to conceive of now an incumbent president losing, a retiring to their

$200,000 a gay speaking event, which is exactly what i am getting paid today ironically. [laughter] but grover did not have that. no pensions for presidents at the time, and part of the concern was pretty much the only job that he enjoyed it could do. he retired to new york between his two terms and did a little bit of lawyering, mostly as a mediator. but it's funny. he was the last of the do nothing president's command that don't mean that in n-bat away. he vetoed more bills to met twice as many bills in his first term than all his predecessors combined. he really saw his job primarily as keeping congress from passing bad loss. he really saw that as what the executive was supposed to do first and foremost, and he did that. he did is mayor and governor and president. he was the veto president. and as i said also he did not believe in an interventionist government which appeals to a lot of people even today.

so i think he deserves to be remembered much better than he is. i mean, let's see. he has a turnpike rest upon the jersey turnpike named after him. i think that is between exits 11 and 12 northbound. that's about it. well, and this great new book. [laughter] that's it. [inaudible] >> every child whoever purchases a placemats the gown and has all the presidents. it's also it down. the pictures are coming up twice. >> says. he stripped the numbering. actually, harry truman never could understand why grover was counted twice. he just thought that was ridiculous because only 43 people had been president. so yap.

thanks. >> the book is now available. happy to sign a copy for you. >> anti-semites. [applause] [applause] >> that was matthew algeo ion "the president is a sick man." for more information about the author and to read his blog visit the website. >> trowels thompson's new book. mr. thompson, what is your book about? >> in one word, moonshine. but that one word often requires thousands more of the explanation because i am trying to take what people think about this subject, moonshine, and turn it into the history of a broader time in american

history. this was the 1930's during prohibition. the era of the depression. >> what did manage i mean? >> of course america even back in its formation had always had spirit, liquor as part of its social gathering and so forth. three of our first five presidents had liquor distiller is on the plantation. for example, when 1919 came around and the nation for bait anyone from making or distributing alcohol, suddenly here we have both at time of poverty and unemployment, a 25%, and a time when they come in this thing is illegal. a great market for illegal

whiskey. makes a employment poverty. it's going to have a situation with complex. >> the men's and capital of the world. what is the image i capital of the world? >> four of my great grandparents, two of them were born in this community called endicott virginia in the mountains of virginia. franklin county. people claim that. it is a part of their heritage. i am from that culture. and so that is where it starts. the prologue of the book, talk about my own grandfather. but i found out, as an adult, that he had essentially bought his farm using the proceeds from

hauling moonshiner realize that there is something deeper to the story than i ever thought, especially because he never drank a self. so we have this meeting, the spirits of this man means half in this sort of normal and honest in also spirit about my ancestors as well as spirits about liquor. so that canadians very much to me. i began in the book with this relationship. >> the photo is in the 1927 actual illegal distilleries that was located in franklin county where there were 77 different legal distilleries meeting abcatoo the time of probation. we have lots and lots of small farmers who had applied for and received federal licenses to

produce whiskey. i often think, what if you heard today, the interest in local foods, 77 distilleries in one small location in the mountains of virginia, there would be people flocking here to go on some sort of fluid -- to tour. that's what this was. this picture on the front was an illegal distillery were people were trying to make a living. 1919 comes along and those people are suddenly unemployed in this industry that they found at their livelihood. >> the author. the book is spirit of just man, and it is published by the university of illinois. >> what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> high. i'm the author of hesitation kills. combat experience in iraq.