towards the price where the cell phone will scale in china and india. remember, oil, gas, uranium, those are commodities. what happens when you create more demand for a commodity? the price goes up. cell phone, solar cells, those are technologies. what happens when you create more demand for technology? price goes down. you know that from your iphone. i come back a year later. i said jessica, how did that cell phone work out for you? all, it changed my life. i've been raising money out the lawsuit, okay? got another deal for you. see these lights in your auditorium where i'm going to power these lights with solar energy on the roof of this building but it is going to cost you $100 more a month.

what we jessica say? she would say time,, tom. remember that cell phone use opening. it gave me a whole new set of functions i never had before. it was great. you spoke in this auditorium twice. you know we already have lights. [laughter] and we don't really care whether the photons and electrons come from. so unless the mayor of d.c. comes along and says, from now on you're going to be the fully burdened cost of those lights, your to pay this u2 in napster, the cost of the troops protecting the oil in the gulf, they will now cost you $200 a like. what happens then? jessica gets on her cell phone which now costs only $25 says tom, your solar lights, and i'll take 10. and then what? then i'm heading down the cost volume curve on my solar lights.

sure, there is a transition but remember, as you go through this transition, your higher unit cost of energy will be higher, but you will be using less energy so he your actual bill, okay, system works as a wood and other technologies, will actually be lower. and ultimately you are heading for a world where solar cells would be as cheap as 10 issues. but when your team with the new technology, this is the one, you have to understand, we disagree and power, and power in general, is not like a cell phone. it's not like a computer. when he went from a typewriter to computer you would've paid anything. when you went from a fixed length a cell phone you would pay anything because you're getting whole new function. when you go from green energy, from 30 energy to green energy, you don't get a new function. you get the same heating, the same cooling, same mobility and the same by. and, therefore, to get people to

switch, you have to have a crisis. >> last question. back there. >> ryan jacobs. i'm an intern currently in d.c., and i find myself being used for my ability to rely on social media and use of social media more than the thoughts and ideas i have. and perhaps that's because i'm young and unwise, but i also feel that perhaps you haven't over saturation point with social media in your hyper connected world you're speaking of where we rely on it as a tool that we don't care about the ideas that are transported on and we don't care about people who come up with ideas. i wonder if you could comment on that, both of you are one of you. >> i have gotten in trouble, so don't tell anybody i said this, but i've never been on twitter. i've never been on facebook, and

i've never smoked a cigarette. same old three. do believe it is about the content, you know? and i find that it is really hard, at least for me, to focus on traditional reporting, writing, taking and editing. when i would be tweeting or whatever every second, or posting something every second. so i famously talk the talk of globalization, but i do not walk the walk. >> content doesn't matter to you, if you want to have your present position for the rest of your life. [laughter] if you want to get a better job, content matters. [laughter] thank you all for coming. [applause]

>> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org. or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> on your screen is the power and the center of the university of texas at austin campus. booktv has been on location you're at the university of texas conducting interviews with some of their professors who are also authors. every sunday during november we will bury bring you those introduced at 1 p.m. eastern time as part of our university series. >> next on booktv at amanda smith recounts the life of cissy patterson, the 20 century's first female publisher and editor-in-chief of a metropolitan daily newspaper. this is about 45 minutes. >> thank you very much.

if it's all right with you i thought i would read from a few passages from the book and explain to you a little bit more about who cissy patterson was, and then i would be happy to take questions. so, this is from the prologue, overview of her, and it opens with the joe medill family motter. when your grandmother gets raped put on the first age. our patient has come to the breaking point, on december 11, 1941. a plan prepared by president roosevelt had been revealed internet states. according to which his intention was to attack germany by 1943 with all of the resources at the disposal of the united states. with this declaration of war bad action and hitler did not awaken

a sleeping american giant. rather, he took the first fateful step average edition after discovering preparation for battle. for several years they reached urban suggesting franklin delano roosevelt was perhaps less committed to american neutrality in the face of the conflict raging across the globe that they publicly profess to be. having long suspected to peace in saint and despicable president of the united states of promoting quote the work of hatred and war mongering throughout the world, hitler had been presented with what he took to be read everything will prove that ms. truss have been justified. the fear was not alone in questioning the sincerity of the president's long expressed a willingness to untangle the united states abroad. a week before the german declaration of war, two of the most stridently and the administration member of the american press have jointly published in the respected chicago and washington, d.c. newspapers would appear to be

confirmation of their own fears that president roosevelt was laying the united states into war with germany. this monumental scoop not only consisted of experts, the army and navy joint estimates that 10 states would read to launch its own multipronged assault on germany by july 1943, but perhaps even more damning a copy of the presidents own letter ordering the assessment. the german embassy wasted no time in cable and a copy of these revelations to prevent upon the story's publication in washington. on december 4, 1941. a week later and hitler would bark that despite his many peacemaking efforts the recently published proof of roosevelt sneaking belligerence towards germany left them no alternative but to declare war on the united states. on december 14 the german high command would present a furor with his radical strategic reassessments baste likewise

only describe as the anglo-saxon war plan which became known through publication in the "washington times-herald." in november 1946, they are half a decade of the "washington times-herald" rainbow five revelations have been cable to berlin, the weekly magazine would venture one day the movies will get around to selling the fabulous life of patterson. earlier that fall allen of has have been selected to fill the void left by the recent death of her brother as chairman of the board of the new york dating news. after launching the daily news in 1919, joe patterson had made in on the united states first viable tablet, but the newspaper was the largest daily circulation of any tablet or broadsheet in the nation and the largest sunday circulation of any in the world. the choice of the late publisher sister had not been exclusively sentimental and. in her own right out in the medill patterson was ari owner and publisher of the most widely read daily in the nation's capital. the "washington times" help or

call by many both inside and outside of the profession a damnedest newspaper ever to hit the street. according to popular journalistic, the patterson's like their cousins had printers in blood. their grandfather, joseph mitchell, had been editor in chief and owner of the "chicago tribune" from the tinges immediately preceding the civil war until his death in 1899. by mid 1940s under nearly three decades of colonel mccormick's acrimonious anti-roosevelt isolationist direction, the tribune had gone into most widely read newspaper in the midwest and the most widely distributed full-size daily in the nation. transit as both the youngest and the only girl of her generation a month boyce have been her grandfather starting. as such she inherited the disproportion share of tribune company stock a considerable fortune. bypassing eleanor roosevelt, best room, clare boothe luce,

dorky sitcom emily post, and every other prominent american woman of that 191st, with her patrimony, her own attainment and her latest accolade quote, cissy patterson, nobody closer eleanor, is probably the most powerful woman in america. it added, and perhaps the most hated. so cissy patterson was as i said the daughter of chicago, and she was born in 1881, and as a woman born in the late 19th century, she had no expectation of getting a job or of going into the family business at the tribune. and so she did what young heiresses typically good at the turn of the 20th century, and she made one of the events fashionable so-called international matches. in her case, with a very handsome but sort of a dubious count who wasn't at the poll

indiana. and his ancestral states are in the ukraine. she had been warned by her family that he was as one of her mother friend put it, an infamous bad egg. and it turned out to be much worse. she went to live with him and his so-called castles in the ukraine, which were in need of repair. and he married an american heiress in hopes she would provide the funds to do that. and allow him to buy a pack of hounds to create an english style foxhound at his place. among other things. finally, her parents cut them off, refused to give them any more money. that's when countertrend five he came violent and started beating her up. she finally left him just shy of her fourth anniversary and she took her two and half year-old daughter with her, but they count fall eventually and in effect kidnapped and the little

girl and held her for ransom for two years until she was almost four. in the meantime, the patterson's and their cousins the mccormick's were so well connected, cities oval had been the american ambassador at st. petersburg. as a result he had connections at the russian court. so the family was able to prevail upon president abbas, an old republican friend, and the czar of russia to put pressure on count gizycki to return the child. cc came home with her daughter. and after going through a lot of trouble and drink a lot of society, spending a lot of money to get the logo back, sissy in effect ignored her and she grew up sort of neglected and cared for by nannies, one of them actually abused her. and sissy by that point had become sort of notorious and she tried her hand at acting for a while in lake forest where they went to live.

gave that right afford writing novels, one of them about an american girl who married a russian count -- a russian prince actually in the novel. but she ended up giving up writing of novels because she really wanted to be in the newspaper business. so, her family had given her much of a chance to do that but in the meantime, her brother, joe patterson, went on to found the daily news, and her cousin, mccormick and had come to the floor of the "chicago tribune." i don't imagine i could tell chicagoans anything they haven't heard about colonel mccormick, but joe patterson may be a less familiar figure to you. although he seemed to be the heir to a large newspaper fortune, he was at the turn-of-the-century a devout socialist and actually a member of the socialist executive.

although he was still an avid polo player. he had been sort of estranged from his family but came back into the tribune fold. when he and his cousin ran the tribune, they made a lot of innovations that hadn't previously been seen in american journalistic history. so read you a little bit about their collaboration. in the 19 tonight, i was accustomed to the chicago athletic club and take a plunge in the something. one day a friend told me there's a man and a half of them evidently intoxicated signed tribune checks. this proved to be none other than the newspapers treasurer who rob paterson's, one of the former editors at the tribune. sure who plays with his nephew. in february 1909 as joseph but those old -- during which would

cut its of world's greatest newspaper, joe patterson now beginning to outgrow his more extreme views have been avidly welcomed back into the tribune fold as secretary. in march 1911, competition between them a local morning papers it falls into into bloody skirmishes in the streets of chicago. the tribune's board of directors named joe patterson as chairman and per mccormick acting president and chief executive officer. in 1914 and the cousins became the papers joint publishers, codifying the shared responsibly for the tribune with a written so-called ironbound agreement lasting until we are both dead. this almost unprecedented personal and journalistic collaboration between a passion and a mccormick would prove to be surprisingly harmonious for a decade and a half. it's inventive genius is hereditary, bird mccormick would later reflect, i got it

from the mccormick site. none of the medill's new adventure along more. the cousins paid to their respective strengths. going to understand why people behave as they do, why they laugh and cry and hate and love, why people come and blighted by some newspapers and ignore others as his daughter who went on to publish long island newsday's put it. joe patterson revolutionized the content of his fathers so the tribune while bird mccormick launched a technical and mechanical metamorphosis. and initiate the process of article integration. to this end burkett began a quantum huge tracts of timber land in eastern canada to construct paper mills in québec and ontario. under joe's tenure the tribune features, advice, health, easy and child bearing collins led to crime and divorce columns,

flourish again should ever take your affinity for the comics and contributed ration of a number of the tribune's most popular sunday offerings. now they patterson, don't be such a comp so familiar to joe and cissy throughout the childhood would lend his name to the strip that sidney smith created and is absent, joe patterson had overseen, the gumps. prompted him to suggested gasoline alley strip to frank keener. later, it would grow to adulthood in old age over the decades almost in real-time before readers eyes. the serialize escapades of patterson of the cartoons, the working girl, detective dick tracy, and little orphan annie,

attracted and held a loyal, affectionate and ever-growing following. joe patterson attempted to transform the sunday tribune into a sort of comprehensive magazine proposes such a wide and absorbing variety of reading the truth that eventually its readership would need no other publications. the tribune begin paying the highest journalistic salaries and often the unprecedented benefits of medical insurance, liberal sick leave, credit, death benefits, pensions and dental care to its employees. to streamline day-to-day decision-making and operations, the cousins split their duties with a tempered socialist alternate in the role of publisher on a monthly basis with its conservative cousin. only path and work with threaten their ongoing successes. so, with burt and joe in the newspaper business, since he eventually decided she wanted to go into publishing, two, but there is no outlook for her to do that. in the meantime, one of the tribune's great rivals was of course william randolph hearst.

and when he made, when he made his first incursion into the midwest, as you know, the result was bloody. people actually died in the circulation wars of the 1910s. and hearst in a gesture that was the '60s mind gallant, and i think probably is very irritated her brother and cousin offered cissy the chance to first are writing for these newspapers, and he gave her the chance to actually edit his "washington herald," which was running fifth in the sixth paper washington market and the late 1920s. so cissy had had a number of boyfriends after her second marriage, several of whom were really legendary newspaperman, walter how he was one particular, very powerful character.

who is the model for the main character in the play, the front page. and others, another lieutenant who was famous for creating huge circulation gains. and so with the help of her brother and cousin and hearst and another of hearst's deputies, a calmness called brisbane who is often credited, or faulted, with creating yellow journalism, she took the helm of the "washington herald" in august 1930. and during her tenure, when she first arrived in the herald city room, it was filled with sort of old hearst curmudgeons who were skeptical to say the least about the arrival of a woman at the helm. and i think hearst attitude toward it was maybe, maybe it will work. and if nothing else, it's a publicity stunt to have a woman

added a major metropolitan newspaper. and it was sometimes said in the press at the time that cissy was the first woman editor of the major metropolitan newspaper in american history. that wasn't actually the case, although there hadn't been any women at the helms of american newspapers for so long that i guess they had been forgotten about at that point and cissy was reported to be the first one. so cissy started up, and she immediately started making some changes to the hearst formula. one of which was to try to focus on local news, which hearst had resisted but which she graduated. and one focus of her life in washington was that she had been very social and she knew of out of gaza. so she initiated a lot of gossip columns. she also, somebody like and it the other day was talking to them to a sort of 1930s equipment to blogging, but she

would often use the front page signed editorial box on the front of the herald, most of time to attack someone she was angry at. one of whom was her old girl for road frenemy, alice roosevelt longworth, teddy roosevelt's daughter. and effective, these box it goes over and also her general changes to the paper was that within six years she had doubled in the paper's circulation and had made it by far the leading morning paper in d.c. at the same time, william randolph hearst were starting to go into bankruptcy. yet overextended himself. and since he happened to have a lot of cash on hand, and with hearst's mistress, marion davies, cissy and marion davies low and hearst about a million dollars one week and so he could meet payroll, and the next week, and that sort of embedded him to her. when the financial advisers were

trying to unload some of his newspapers, which understandably very upsetting to hearst, he didn't tend to want to part with them and used as a hearst newspapers are not for sale on any sense. but his economic reality forced him to sell, and so cissy bought not only the herald from him, the newspaper shipping editing, but also the evening paper, the "washington times," and merged them in 1939. and one reporter described the merger as electric and that washington went for the product like a trout for a fly. ansa one of the interesting things about cissy's time still, this was a paper described as the damnedest paper to ever hit the streets, and she had the bright idea of two personal make it very locally focused paper but also to use the irresistible elements of the tribune, the "new york daily news," syndicate

alongside the hearst syndicate item. and so she had taken these two elements that were usually at odds, and put them side-by-side and created her own sort of irresistible mix. to washingtonians at the time was a sort of guilty pleasure of people, you know, might not admit that they read it but the circulation statistics don't lie, and it was by far the leading paper throughout the end of the new deal. and right through the war until her death in 1948. and so this is a small description of what she did at the "times-herald." of the cissy patterson's "times-herald" show the isolation of the other family newspaper, prompting charges of the existence of a mccormick patterson access from both rival press outlets and the roosevelt administration, it did not share the ownership structure.

were as the tribune, effectively on both the "chicago tribune" and the new daily news, cissy alone owns the "times-herald." in many regards the paper's success was a direct result of its unique corporate structure, or lack of it. as sole provider the redhead who according to one veteran reporter sported an equally red pedicure and a temper to match had no board of directors, no trustees, no stockholders, others describe with or to hold a candle with the answer after put it she owns on the times held in quote exactly the same way in a legal sense as she owned her clothes in her houses. she wore it and ran it that way, too. everyday would risk her entire property and are very stubborn neck. as publishers, cissy ensure none of the protections the corporations would've before. the salty "times-herald" led to the cabin newspaper morgan on in circulation and revenue but also in the number and size of rival judgment rendered against. these cissy pay out of their own

deep pocket. the civil dockets from the 1940s are as much a testament to cissy's devil may care attitude as a seal for burly truck drivers and hustlers inc. and putting their appointed rounds. whatever or whoever might stand in their way. other vehicles, pets, elderly pedestrians or children. in her constant efforts to keep the entertaining entertaining, beauty contests, giveaways and publicity stunts. after instances several members of her personal staff began writing for the paper. a culinary column, appeared under the byline of cissy scott, rebecca. and antecedent against a over in that way. to the renewed astonishment of the old hearst crew, the equine column proved to be extremely

popular in the capital, situated as was between the maryland and virginia horse country's. it was cissy's own journalistic contributions they get the paper much of its notorious bite and drew much of its readership. she continued to indulge her peaks and provide back the old friends who have fallen away. likewise, as a patient with a new deal and franklin roosevelt wore thin, as american intervention into the warrant appeared likely, few members of the administration escaped the "times-herald." so, cissy up until the war had been like her brother joe patterson, very enthusiastic about the new deal. and actually her brother had gone to the extreme of pledging on the day the roosevelt was inoculated not to write any criticism about the administration for a year. the "new york daily news" renewed at a year later and continued it for another year. the rationale being that roosevelt faced unprecedented difficulties on coming into

office. but during the course of the 1930s since he began to grow sort of suspicious of the new deal, and both pattersons began to fear that roosevelt was maybe less neutral with regard to american intervention abroad than he claimed to be publicly. so they became very vocal and very, economically opposed to the administration in late 1941. and after pearl harbor, neither paperback and and they continue to attack the administration all the way through the war. at the same time, cissy was undergoing some personal struggles. little girl, her daughter had been kidnapped as a child, had become estranged from her. and at the same time since he was under attack all over the country, particularly on the

floor of the congress where various congressmen, senators she felt could attacked with impunity because you can't be sued for libel, or you can't be sued for slander on the floor of the congress. so, at the same time since his former son-in-law, her daughter's ex-husband was a famous political columnist who had supported roosevelt through the war and whom cissy fell out with, that he and his new wife basically formed the only family that cissy had managed to hold onto. ..

>> he had a practice anyway that seemed to involve giving women around washington injections for weight loss or to feel better or to help sleep, and he came to a lot of parties, and one night she fell down face down in her soup. her staff didn't know how to call. her doctors were too old to serve. they were out of town, and it was summer, and they called the doctor who declared she had a heart attack, and he wouldn't let anybody see her and he began

giving her narcotics keeping her in a twilight state throughout the summer. she scribbled letters to her friends to come save her. her biggest complaint was he drank all her champaigne. one friend finally got the message and got her out, and she had a nervous break down in the meantime, but she recooperated and went on, but she became paranoid and frightened, and rightly so because a bomb was thrown through the front door of the times herald at one time. she was an avid dude rancher in the 1920s, and 1930s, and she

was the best woman shot in the united states, and she was a big game hunter and she gave that up, but she was a good marksman, so she kept loaded firearms in her purses, cars, and night table and hired armed guards to sit outside her bedroom door as she slept, and at the same time, she began to worry about her mortality and buttonholed people at parties, somebody she took a liking to. she made her will, and she didn't know what to do with the newspaper. she might say, i like you and maybe you'll get the paper. she told this to enough people and also told people she decided to leave the paper in what was really radical and up precedented request in the course of american history. shemented to leave the paper, not to any member of the family

was traditionally the case, but she wanted to leave it to the executive staff to ran the paper with her and allow them to divide is equally amongst themselves, and as time wore on, she was growing suspicious of her executive staff, too, and she announced at parties she intended to the to give it to them, and she announced publicly she was changing her will, and made an appointment with the lawyer on july 25th, and on the night of july 24th, she was at her country house outside of washington in the maryland countryside and everything seemed to be as usual. she, at this point, had a large pack of poodles who were by all accounts ferocious, badly trained, and they protected her, but the people were apparently terrified of them. they were unruly and up fit.

at one o'clock in the morning, she handed the poodles off to the armed guard before going to bed, and her lady's maid remembered throughout the night the poodles started howling and didn't stop until the morning, and the next morning when the editors began calling seeing i need her comments on this story. have her get back to me. the staff was too afraid to wake her up. she was famous partly for her kind of off with their heads attitudes with regards to human resources, and nobody wanted to wake her up if it's not absolutely necessary, and the hours went by, and timely, the butler went in and discovered that she died during the night, and cissy was somebody who, as you might be able to tell, was one of those people who created

controversy and upset wherever she went, and that was the case even when she was incapacitated, but also after her death, and the story of what happened with her will is really extraordinary one in its own right. her daughter, felicia, who she was e stranged from came back and said she wanted to be cremated. she left a letter saying only after i had done that did i realize there was no way to do an autopsy, what if she was murdered? when she buttonholed people saying i'll leave you my newspaper, and she said if i die under strange circumstances, my cousin gets the newspaper.

there's an amazing story told by the wife at the time that when she got the call that cissy died, he sang a song saying i'm the last leaf on the tree. the daughter challenged the will, and it's a long story so i won't go into great detail here, but she did manage to secure or to get the agreement to testify from one of cissy's former secretaries and former treasurer that cissy was the victim of coercion and fraud and was of up sound mind at the time she made the will, and as the daughter put it very aptly, i think, she said on the day that i actually officially brought suit, both of my witnesses committed suicide under peculiar circumstances, and in both instances, these

suicides whether they were or not has never been clear, but both instances, the suicides belongings and papers had been riffled through, and it seemed like documents were taken, and what happened to the documents, and what was in them, nobody knows at this point, but in any case, this was a very -- it was an amazing life, but a troubled one in a lot of ways, and it made for great newspaper reporting. there's a sort of so mages that "time" magazine said after her death, it's the story cissy would have loved to have told about someone else. i don't know if that was a fair one. their motto was if your grandmother gets raped, put it on the front page. a lot of her old reporting staff said when they covered the story

of her death and of the will fight, they really played # it up just the way she would have wanted, and anyway, thank you for coming tonight, and if i can answer any questions, please let me know. [applause] thank you. >> what made you choose her as a subject? i mean, i don't think she's as well known these days as 40 or 50 years ago. what compelled you to pick her as the subject of the book? >> the question is why did i pick cissy as my subject. the last book was an edition of the letters to joseph kennedy, and throughout the course of that, i got really interested in the better known isolationists, and there's others left, but that's a very colorful and

outlandish group of people, and of that group, cissq was by far the most colorful and outlain dish, and -- outlandish, and i felt i came to her because all roads led to her. two of my mother's sisters had worked for cissy, and so i had heard about this lady publisher in dc, and i had always had the impression she was a sort of zaney socialite, but when i dug deep e i found statistics, and people don't mention the herald had by far the widest relationship -- readership of any paper in dc, and that struck me interesting that whatever else you said about her, both papers were doing badly before her in a

fourth, fifth, and sixth paper market, and she made them by far the leading paper, and that struck me as interesting. if you look at the history of the ownership of those papers, i mean, some of the most successful american publishers of the 20th century owned those papers at one point, william randall hurst had be before cissy, and after she died she would have been horrified to discover william mccormick bought the paper from her executives. he bought it because circulation dropped very quickly, and she had been running it in the black, but her executive staff couldn't maintain that, so mccormick bought to to squeeze it into the tribune mold, and that didn't go over well, and in

1954, it was sold to the post. the "washington post" was sold as "washington post" in large type, and in diminishing type over the course of time, times-herald, and it just wasted away like that, but anyway, she struck me as a really interesting woman to go from being called the most powerful and most hated women in the united states to being forgotten by the beginning of the next century struck me as amazing, so that's how i got interested in her. >> oh, that's all right. i have a loud voice. i read the works of ralph martin and i'm familiar with her life, and what most intrigues her is similarities between her and her daughter alicia --

>> or felicia? >> i meant to say felicia, yeah. they are rebellious, independent, nobody can push them around. they traveled all over the country in europe. they both marryied very impoverished european aristocrats and soon divorced both marriages made in hell basically, and they both became novelists, had strange relationships with their daughters, and they were both alcoholics, and they were both very per miscue yows. to what extent, both of them having grown up in a very -- well in a development deprived of motherly affection predisposed them to have the same fate in their lives and maybe made them insecure and

then they just tried to like overcompensate for, you know, maybe the way they were emotionally crippled in that respect. >> yeah, i think that is -- you make some really good points. felicia was an amazing woman, and i don't know how well known it is, but one avenue her story in the book took me down was that, you know, she was a little girl who was kidnapped, and then her mother ignored # her more or less when she came home to america, but not surprisingly, felicia went on to have issues with drinking, and actually that's becoming the sixth woman to ever join aa in the 1940s, and i had not realized aa went that far back, but, you know, felicia's life was an extraordinary one. i mean, it was very comfortable and luxury at time, but as she put i