[inaudible conversations] .. >> they had him in mind, that's at 1. and at noon on sunday, gail collins. lindsey holdsome at 1, and at 2

thomas mallen has a story to tell in, "watergate: a novel." sunday at 9, madeleine albright. booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> you're watching booktv. jonathan sarna recounts general ulysses s. grant's order to expel the jewish population on december 17th, 1863. the order, quickly rebuked by abraham lincoln, would trouble grant into his 1869 presidential campaign. this is a little under an hour. >> well, thank you to rabbi angel for that remarkable introduction and praising. i have to say that the subject

of my lecture not only concerns a historic event, but actually i once put my own -- it actually once put my own academic career in jeopardy. in 1982 i was a young faculty member at the hebrew college jewish institute of religion in cincinnati, and i was invited to deliver a talk before the institution's board of overseers. this was, of course, an important rite of passage for a new faculty member, and i was determined to prove myself. and since 1982 coincided with the 120th anniversary of ulysses s. grant's general orders number 31 expelling, quote -- 11 expelling, quote, jews from his

war zone, i decided to take that infamous 1862 order as my subject. grant's order was the most notorious official act of anti-semitism in american history. it is really the only time that jews as a class have been expelled from anywhere in the united states. and around 1982 new information concerning that order had become available from the association that published ulysses s. grant's papers. so it was that i began to prepare my remarks, and on the appointed day i put on a new suit and my talk seemed to be going well until i broached the subject of smuggling. now, ulysses s. grant was

teachly concerned about -- was deeply concerned about smuggling between the north and the south, and since of the smugglers that his troops caught were jews, he concluded that all jews were smugglers. i pointed out that we now know that smuggling was rampant throughout grant's territory, it was by no means a jewish monopoly. in fact, i enthusiastically continued, grant's own father, jesse grant, was engaged in a clandestine scheme to move southern cotton northward. his partners were the jewish clothing manufactureers harmon henry and simon mack. well, no sooner were those words

out of my mouth than a few chairs began to shift uneasily in the room, and my mentor, the pioneering american jewish historian jacob marcus buried his face in his hands. [laughter] i knew i was in big trouble. clearly, i'd said something terribly wrong, but i'd studied the archives, i didn't know what the problem was. so fearing for the security of my position, i humbled to the end of the lecture and invited questions. an old man in the front row sitting just about where you are rose to his feet. my name is mack, he memorably began, and looking me straight in the eye, he announced that was my great grandfather you

were talking about! and, he continued after a long and rather dramatic pause, it's all true! [laughter] at that point the room relaxed, and dr. marcus looked up, and everybody smiled, and my academic career was saved. [laughter] it took me about 30 years to get over that experience, but in "when general grant expelled the jews," i have returned to those notes concerning general numbers number 11 and its aftermath and the story, i hope, remains full of interest. now, general grant's order number 11 dated december the 17th, 1862 read as follows: the

jews as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the treasury department andal department orders are hereby expelled from the department within 24 hours from the receipt of this order. we might have expected in the face of an order like this that thousands of jews would have been evicted from grant's territory, a huge area stretching from northern mississippi to caro, illinois, and from the mississippi river to the tennessee river. memphis alone at that time was one of the large jewish communities in the south. but surprisingly, very few jews

were actually expelled. some from the area around holly springs, mississippi, and others as we shall see from paducah, kentucky. most jews, notwithstanding the order, remained unaffected for a long time. i wondered why. the answer lies buried in the 130 massive volumes known as the official record of the war of the rebellion, the title hints at which side produced that official record. [laughter] there we learn that less than 72 hours after issuing general order number 11 grant's forces at holly springs were surprised by 3500 confederate raiders led

by major general earl van dohrn. grant himself was far from the scene when the raid happened, and the commanding officer, a man named robert c. murphy, was -- according to the official record -- quote, out at some entertainment which made him a trifle overbold. that's a nice way of saying that he was stone drunk. [laughter] the results proved devastating. holly springs surrendered, hundreds of bales of cotton destroyed, troops were captured, and there were simultaneous raids that tore up 50 miles of railroad track as well as telegraph lines. and that is the key to the

mystery. communications between grant's headquarters and the military command were disrupted for weeks by these surprise attacks, and as a result, news of grant's order expelling the jews spread slowly and did not reach headquarters in a timely fashion. sparing many jews who might otherwise have been banished. a copy of general orders number 11 finally reached paducah, kentucky, which had been occupied much earlier by grant's forces 11 days after the order was issued. about 30 jews lived at that time in paducah, most of them merchants, and they were divided in their loyalties much like the rest of the population.

some sported the con fed -- supported the confederacy, some the unis. corruption ran rampant in paducah, it was a hotbed of smuggling and recriminations abounded. not for the first time in such situations, suspicion fell particularly pop -- particularly upon the jews, long stereotyped as being financially unscrupulous. even though few in number, they actually played an outsized role in business and trade in paducah, and as immigrants they were easily marked by their european accents and foreign ways. unionists and confederates alike doubted their loyalty. so it was that caesar catskill,

a staunch union supporters as well as all the other known jews in the city were handed papers ordering them to leave the city of paducah, kentucky, within 24 hours. women and children were expelled too. and in the confusion, so it was recalled years later, one baby was almost forgotten, and two dying women had to be left behind in the care of neighbors. historian johnny l. robertson of paducah preserved a somewhat dubious tradition that citizens of his city hid some jews to prevent their being sent away. one soldier, he reports, is said to have knocked on the tour of

of -- on the door of a jew and demanded, what are you? the residents of the house answered truthfully, tailor, to which the not-too-bright soldier replied, oh, sorry to bother you, mr. taylor, i'm looking for jews. as they prepared to leave their homes, caesar catskill and several other jews sent a telegram to president abraham lincoln describing their plight and pronouncing themselves greatly insulted and outraged by this inhuman order, the carrying out of which would be the gross violation of the constitution and our rights as good citizens under it. they were echoing those whom rabbi angel talked about.

lincoln, in all likelihood, never saw that telegram. he was busy preparing the emancipation proclamation. the irony of his freeing the slaves while grant was ec pelling the j -- expelling the jews was not lost on some contemporaries. the memphis daily bulletin published the two documents, one above the other. the juxtaposition of these events also showed the responses of jewish leaders to grant's order. some of them feared that blacks, that jews would replace blacks as the nation's stigmatized minority. so caesar catskill wasted no time. on my way to washington in order

to get this most outrageous and inhuman order of major general grant countermanded, he announced. and, like a latter day paul revere, he rode down to washington spreading the news of general orders number 11 wherever he went. arriving in the nation's capital just as the jewish sabbath was concluding on january the 3rd, he called at once upon cincinnati's outgoing republican congressman john addison girly who enjoyed ready access to the white house. the congressman, with catskill in tow, sought an immediate audience with the president, and according to the likely-embellished account many years later, lincoln sent word that he was always glad to see his friends and shortly made his

appearance. abraham lincoln turned out to have no knowledge whatsoever of general orders number 11 because it had not reached washington. the telegraph lines were down. according to an oft-quoted report, lincoln resulted to biblical imagery in his interview with catskill, a reminder of how many 19th century americans linked jews to ancient israel and america to the promised land. and so, lincoln is said to have drawled, the children of israel were driven from the happy land of canaan. yes, catskill replied. and that is why we have come unto father abraham's bosom

asking protection. and this protection, lincoln declared, they shall have at once. now, each if the conversation didn't -- even if the conversation didn't exactly go that way -- [laughter] lincoln did instantly instruct the general and chief of the army, henry howlick, to countermand general orders number 11. he seemed to have had his doubts of the authenticity, so in writing to grant he chose his words carefully. if such an order has been issued, his telegram read, it will be immediately revoked. two days later several urgent telegrams went out from grant's headquarters in obedience to

that demand. by direction of the general in chief of the army at washington, they read, the general order from these headquarters expelling jews from the department is hereby revoked. in a follow-up meeting with jewish leaders, lincoln reaffirmed that he knew no distinction between jew and gentile. to condemn a class, he emphatically declared -- thereby turning grant's order practically on its head -- to condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad. i do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned. on account of a few sinners. the rev indication of -- the revocation of general orders

number 11 by no mean ended the controversy surrounding its issuance. democrats in congress sought unsuccessfully to censure grant, newspapers debated the issue. in retrospect, we know the jews were by no means the only victims of human rights violations during the civil war, there were many. but jews were the only religious minority expelled, quote, as a class from a large war zone. anti-jewish prejudices were heightened during the civil war by the prominence of several jews, notably jefferson davis' right-hand man and cabinet secretary judah.benjamin, in the

ranks of the confederacy. senator benjamin wade called benjamin, it's a wonderful line, he called him an israelite with egyptian principles. [laughter] but the jewish confederates were by no means the only cause of prejudice. smuggling, speculating, price gouging, swindling, producing shoddy merchandise for the military, all were similarly laid at the doorstep of the jews. indeed, jews during the civil war came to personify wartime capitalism's ills. they bore disproportionate blame for badly-produced uniforms, poorly-firing weapons, inedible foodstuffs and other substandard merchandise that corrupt contractors supplied to the war

effort and settlers marketed to unsuspecting troops. in the eyes of many americans, including some in the military, all traders and smugglers and wartime profiteers were jews whether they actually were jewish or not, echoing a perennial anti-semitic canard was that jews preferred to benefit from war rather than fight in it. now, there is no doubt that some jews did illegally enrich themselves within the war. the famous jewish fraternal organization admitted as much in a secret communication to its

members. i'll read it, but don't tell anyone i told you. [laughter] information has been received here, doubtless authentic, proving the fact of certain of our co-religionists being engaged in an illegal traffic and other acts of disloyalty with those who are in rebellion against the government. what if course of grant's order was that he identified a widespread practice, meaning smuggling, with a visible group and then blamed jews as a class for what was, in fact, an inevitable by-product of wartime shortages, exploited by jews and non-jews, civilians and military men alike the occasion for the

order, december the 17th,1862, has long remained somewhat mysterious. why? the mystery is come pounded by the fact that just eight days earlier grant had actually countermanded an order from one of his doll knells, john -- colonels, john duboise, expelling all cotton speculators, jews and other vagrants from the much more limited area around holly springs, mississippi. and the answer to that mystery brings us back to my opening story. we now know that in mid december of 1862 ulysses s. grant received a visit from his 68-year-old father, jesse r. grant, accompanied by members of

the mack family of cincinnati, a significant jewish clothing manufacturer. any mack descendants in the audience? [laughter] herman henry and simon mack, as part of an ingenious scheme, had formed a secret partnership with the spectrum neural, somewhat shady elder grant. and in return for jesse grant getting 25% of the profits, he agreed to accompany them to his son's mississippi headquarters, act as their agent to procure a permit for them to purchase cotton and help them to secure the means to transport that cotton to new york. now, the macks certainly didn't know how troubled the relationship was between ulysses suspect grant and his -- s.

grant and his father. ulysses, like many a child who sets off on his own path, craved his father's approval but wiped at many of -- but winced at many of the old man's shortcomings. in this case, according to an eyewitness, the younger grant waxed indignant at his father's crass and illegal attempts to profit from his son's military status, and he raged at the jewish traitors who entrapped his old father into such an unworthy undertaking. he refused to provide the permit, sent the macks homeward on the first train to the north, and in high dung john, immediately issues the order expelling jews as a class from his territory. in a classic act of

displacement, the general expelled the jews rather than his father. [laughter] now, ulysses s. grant never made public mention of his father's corruption scheme with the macks, he never defended himself at all, not each in his long and justly celebrated personal memoirs written just prior to his death. that was a matter long past and best not referred to, grant's son frederick who helped him with the memoirs quoted his father saying just as the memories passed over other embarrassing episodes from the war, most notably the general's bouts of drunkenness. so, too, did they ignore his

orders expelling jews as a class. julia department -- julia dent grant, ulysses' wife, liked to remember. in her memoirs, which actually were only published in the 1970s, she went out of her way to mention general orders number 11 characterizing it as nothing less than on knox chus -- on knox chus. the general, she recalled, felt that the severe reprimand he received for the order was deserved, for he had no right to make an order against any special sect. now, had ulysses s. grant

expressed such sentimentses himself back in 1863, the subsequent course of his relationship with the jewish community might have been altogether terrorist. different. but as it was, he found himself compared in some jewish circles to historic enemies of the jewish people, a long and ignoble list. the most common comparison was to the wicked hayman, the czar of persia, villain of the biblical book of esther which, as some remember, is read by jews to this day on the holiday of -- [inaudible] at precisely this comparison came back to haunt ulysses s. grant when he ran for president in 1868.

thanks to his democratic opponents who used general orders number 11 to curry favor with the jews, the order became an important election time issue. for the very first time in american history, a jewish issue stood front and center in a presidential contest, and jewish politics -- meaning politics focused upon jews as a group -- moved to the fore front of a presidential campaign. the problem for many jews was that they choked at the thought of voting for grant, but they strongly supported his republican party's domestic policies concerning

reconstruction. the democrats, after all, were eager to reverse reconstruction laws and to disenfranchise all black voters. so jews who supported republican policies faced a very difficult conundrum. should they vote for a party they considered bad for the country, the democrats, just to avoid voting for man? who had been bad to the jews. great. two of america's most distinguished reformed rabbis debated how jews should vote in various newspaper columns. rabbi adler of chicago's oldest

synagogue known by its initials, kam, by the way, today it is exactly opposite barack obama's house in chicago. not then. rabbi liebman argued voting in favor of what he considered broad american interests. proud as he was of being a jew, he explained, it is different when i take a ballot in order to exercise my rights as a citizen. then i am not a jew, but i feel and act as a citizen of the republic. and he continued. if that party in whose hands i believe the welfare of the country was the safest were to place a hayman at the helm of state, and if the opposite party whose nonexistence i believe would be better for humanity and

my country were to place messiah at their head, make moses the chief justice and call the patriarchs through the cabinet, i should say press for hayman my fatherland, and here you have my vote even if all the jew in me mourns. not all rabbis would agree, i think, with that sentiment. if wrong is wrong, he who defends it is weakened, he replied, and in answer to those like adler who raised the specter of multiple loyalties, he insisted that identities in real life could not so easily be

compartmentalized. a lifelong democrat, wise concluded the responsible voters needed to weigh up their responsibilities as jews and as citizens at one and the same time. and recalling general orders number 11, he came down forcefully against grant. now, when the votes were finally tallied, grant emerged the winner by more than 300,000 votes and a healthy 134 electoral votes. here in new york grant lost by precisely 10,000 votes, and the historians think that's a little bit too precise for it to be true. voter fraud has long been suspected, but whatever the case, the jewish vote whose size the pundits then and now greatly

exaggerated, the jewish vote could scarcely have made much a difference. actually, as john hope franklin, the great historian, pointed out years ago, the more than half a million americans who were able to vote in 1868, especially those who voted in the south, likely voted for grant. they made much more of a difference and swung the election in grant's favor. now, a fitting epilogue to the tumultuous battle for the jewish vote appeared in newspapers across the country. during the final week of november, lou lis cease -- ulysses s. grant released a letter telling jews just what they wanted to hear from the

president-elect. quote: i have no prejudice against sect and race but want each individual to be judged by his own merit. order number 11 does not sustain that statement, i admit, but then i do not sustain that order. it never would have been issued if it had not been telegraphed the moment it was penned and without renext. reflection. now, during his eight-year presidency, grant actually went out of his way to prove that apology genuine. indeed, he appointed more jews to public office than all previous presidents combined. governor of washington and a superintendent of indian affairs, the first president to have a jewish adviser, the first to attend a synagogue dedication, the first to actively intervene on behalf of

persecuting jews in russia and romania, and more and more. but for that, you have to read the book. [laughter] in retrospect, the years of grant's presidency represented something of a golden age for american jews. during that all-too-brief period, jews achieved heightened status on the national scene. judaism won recognition at least from grant as a faith co-equal to protestantism and catholicism. anti-jewish prejudice declined, and j well,ews looks forward optimistically to a liberal epoch characterized by sensitivity to human rights and interreligious cooperation. the logic of reconstruction, one

historian called america's second founding, shaped that golden age. the same post-civil war policies and values that opened up the new opportunities for black americans during reconstruction, likewise extended new opportunities for jews. and this is a good moment to remind you that there are two hope here. i'll -- two microphones here. i'll be take questions in a minute or two, and if you want to ask a question, please, approach one of those two standing mics. and remember when you do, i haven't finished yet, to tell us your name and out of respect for others, just one question, please. but now let me tell you about what happened following his presidency.

following grant's presidency, he traveled around the world including to the land of israel. in fact, he is the very first president to travel there. and on several occasions he publicly reinforced his support for jews. when he died in 1885 here in new york, he died the very same week as the greatest jew in the world at that time, sir moses month be fury of england, and amazingly the two men were linked together in the american jewish mind as heroes and humanitarians. and they were mourned together in many synagogues. what a change. from two decades earlier. subsequently, of course, grant's reputation sank like a stone.

twentieth century historians, some of them critical of his beneff leapt policies towards blacks -- benever be lent policies towards blacks, criticizeed the way he -- only warren g. harding ranked lower. you can't get much lower than that. [laughter] standard jewish history still quotes general orders number 11 and forget everything that happened later. the new edition of the encyclopedia jewish die ca confirms, quote, grant's name has been linkedder revocably with anti-jewish prejudice.

a re-examination of grant's career makes clear that he deserved better. his transformation from enemy to friend, from -- [inaudible] to mordecai, from a general who expelled jews as a class to a president who embraced jews as individuals reminds us that even great figures in history can learn from their mistakes. in america hatred can be overcome. thank you very much. [applause] >> my name is gerald wolf and, first, i want to thank you for a

most magnificent picture of this event. >> thank you. >> my question is this: the department that general grant was in charge of was not a small geographic area, and i wonder whether you feel that his order was an emotional peak rather than something to be implemented, and for that regard i ask you did he have any sort of method of implementation, of enforcing the order, or was it just he got angry? >> well, we do know that copies of the order were sent by telegram in various dereks. i actually -- directions. i actually reproduce one of those telegrams in the book. so while i'm sure that he got

angry, i do think that efforts were made to send out in all directions copies of the order with the expectation that his order would be carried out. and my suspicion -- which, of course, i can't prove -- is that had the telegraph line been working, many more j everything ws -- jews would have been expelled. please. >> yes, my name is arnold smith from yonkers. this has nothing to do with grant, per se, but i just wanted the find out under which president was the first jew assigned or appointed to the cabinet? >> well, it's interesting, one of the things i reveal here is that grant actually wanted to appoint a jew, joseph seligman, so the answer would have been

ulysses s. grant, but seligman turned the job down. his family thought he would need it in the bank, and there were other reasons. [laughter] so the first president, the first jewish cabinet member is strauss, also from here in new york, and oscar strauss was appointed by theodore roosevelt to the cabinet in the 20th century. >> yes. my name is dennis middlebrooks. i once read that about 7,000 jews served in the union army, and i assumed a number were in grant's own army, so my question is, how did this general order effect jews in the union army, and was there any backlash among officers? >> it's a wonderful question. how did it effect people in grant's own army. we know that one of the reasons given later for revoking the order was that there were jewish

soldiers, and i do reproduce in the volume a letter by a jewish soldier from cincinnati who resigns from the army claiming that in the wage of general orders number 11 he, um, finds that he can no longer serve, clearly his position is made uncomfortable by his fellow troops, so, clearly, there were implications. on the other hand, the highest ranking jew in grant's army was a man named marcus spiegel. that's the same spiegel later his relatives founded the spiegel catalog. he, unfortunately, didn't survive the war, but he did leave letters, and the amazing thing is he makes no reference to general order number 11 at all in those letters. i don't know why, whether

letters were missing or he didn't choose to say it or it was too painful. i don'ti don't know. clearly, the people who really were affected were the jewish settlers because there are several telegrams asking grant, did you mean for us to expel the jewish settlers? and armies then and now run on their stomachs. if there's nothing there for the troops, that's going to be very bad. and be the settlers, of course, weren't expelled because lincoln overturned the order. yeah. >> hi, i'm jim kucinich. my question deals with the relationship of henry howlich and grant. in 1862 it was very, very poor. howlich had removed grant from command. >> right. >> are you a little suspicious that grant would have done something as provocative atorder number 11 without howlich even

knowing about it in spite of the fact that communications were down? >> um, well, first of all, it's wonderful to know people who really know their civil war history. it's great. [laughter] i can't imagine -- grant had no way of knowing when he issued the order that the telegraph lines would be cut less than 72 hours later. if he had known that, he would have made sure to have been there and not given that drunk murphy in charge. so i'm sure that grant assumed that in the natural course of events copies of the order would immediately be telegraphed to washington which was supposed to happen, and then howlich would have seep it at once. would have seen it at once. at least my understanding is that nobody knew about the order precisely because the telegraph lines were down.

now, what howlich would have done on his own had he seen the order especially given his feelings toward grant, that's hard to know. and this is a particularly bad time. remember, we're talking prior to vicksburg. so grant hasn't yet proven himself. but, again, that put us in the realm of the if. apparently, howlich didn't pay any attention to telegrams of protest, and it really via -- it was really via lincoln that the order was revoked. making it very clear that lincoln had issued the order. please. >> hi there. michael from the city of -- [inaudible] actually. you mentioned judah benjamin. i'm just wondering if you have a view on was the confederacy more

open toward the jews, were there more jews in leadership or, actually, even serving? >> it's, of course, a good question and there is, of course, no doubt that no jew rose up as high in the union as judah benjamin did in the confederacy. indeed, judah benjamin was secretary of state in the confederacy, you have to wait until henry kissinger, somebody with are that kind of talent. [laughter] but we have to be a little careful before we make too much of the position of jews in the south. remember that in many areas of the south whites were a minority. and whenever you have a white minority, jews are going to be accepted because the white minority is interested in taking

every pale face to their side in the sense of the lines are racial rather than religious, and so long as jews don't rock the bode and go -- rock the boat and go along with the values of the minority groups, they can gain acceptance. so while i think it is true that in areas of the south jews did win more acceptance than they did in the north, it is rather important to remember the context under which that happened which is not altogether pretty, and that makes the story look a little, a little bit different. but it is worth remembering that the vast majority of jews were in the north. probably there are 150,000 jews at that time, 120,000 or so in

the north, only about 30,000 in the south. >> rabbi angel's introduction seemed to imply that general orders number 11 came out of nowhere because of the religious freedom in america, but was it really that surprising since there was still no guarantee of religion on the state level and, you know, in many of their lifetimes jews would have finally received citizenship rights, i think maryland wasn't until 1825? >> well, um, of course, we're talking about 81862. >> you're right. >> it's not that it was in 1776 that jews were fully integrated and accepted on both federal and state level. >> so what you're pointing out importantly is that the first amendment reads congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion prohibiting the free exercise thereof. it doesn't say anything about the states. it's only going to be in the 20th century that the supreme court is going to interpret the

14th amendment as applying all of the first ten to the states. but most of the states and certainly all of the states where jews actually lived had granted jews full equality by, as you say, 1826, and the last but maryland. and new hampshire where you didn't really have a jewish community doesn't get around to it until 1877. but i do think, um, that while it's easy at any point to find a discrimination against and prejudice against jews, when you compare the american situation not to some utopian ideal, but to what is going on elsewhere in the world, even in england where jews could not yet serve in government or in germany and let alone in eastern europe where

the majority of jews were, where they'd been thrown into the pail of settlement, then when you look that way, the american experiment is a great experiment, and there's no parallel to the great documents that america had. those documents or ideals admittedly, and there's a cap between the ideal and the realization, but other country didn't even have the ideals. had america not appeared different, most of those immigrants wouldn't have come to america. it was mighty dangerous crossing the ocean. um, you would have gone somewhere else. they came to america believing that america was, indeed, different, and i think european jews took a great interest in the american experiment. so, yes, i do think america even before then the new world opened

up possibilities that didn't exist in the old world, and people looked in wonder. thanks. last question, yeah. >> randy helm, mulen berg college. i was fascinated by the idea which seems very compelling to me that grant's 'em temp rate -- intemp rate response was triggered by the fact that his father was complicit in the smuggling scheme. i have heard and read a little bit that lincoln's own sister-in-law was also involved in smuggling, and that was, you know, so it was pretty rampant. and that lincoln in his own way could be intemp rate about that, his own frustration level -- which would indicate that his, that this was really a matter of principle for him because he had a pretty short fuse when it came to smuggling as well, and i just

wondered if that had come up in your research. >> i certainly don't know that his relatives were in cahoots were jews, at least i haven't discovered that. i think the point is there was vast amounts of smuggling, and from the point of view of the generals, this was the worst, um, kind of un-american activity that could have been engaged in because grant and sherman deeply believed that you can't trade with a country and also wage war at the country at one and the same time, and that if, in fact, there had been a full-scale blockade of the south, then the war would have ended much more quickly. and that's probably true.

but we now know that the possibility of making money by crossing the the blockade was enormous. you could make easily 400% on your money. that's more than i get many my bank account now a days. [laughter] and that temptation was too great for people to withstand and, of course, even in their own day -- and maybe that's why we read history -- efforts to blockade various countries to get them to behave don't succeed as well as we would like because people don't uphold the blockade the way we would wish. so in that sense we read about the 19th century, but we see parallels to our own day. thanks again. [applause] >> you're watching booktv on

c-span2. 8 -- 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> you know, i look -- the first thing i do is i look for anything michael connolly has coming out, and i go -- i'll buy it in hard copy just right away because i can't wait for anything less. but david baldacci's innocent, i'm reading that right now. and sue braxton, she comes up -- sue grafton. that's great fun. you sit on the beach, and your kids want to talk the you, and you don't want to talk to anybody, you just want to finish your book, so good. so i really love mysteries and action kind of packed. i stay away from policy when i'm on vacation and just go for

something that -- or on airplanes just go for something that takes me away from where i am and allows me to relax. >> for more information on this and other summer reading lists, visit booktv.org. so to get right into it, i want to set the statement a little bit about the 1930s and to explain that part of what led to world war ii being such an upheaval for the united states were the policies of frank lip roosevelt during the -- franklin roosevelt during the 930s. to give you some statistics, i'll be brief on those, for instance, factory output, the output of american industry increased every decade beginning in 1899 for the following ten years factory output was up 4.7%. from 1909-1919, the up 3.4% every year. 1919-1929, the roaring '20s,

factory production was up 5.1% each year. but 1929-1939 it decreased slightly every single year during the 1930s. so our industrial complex, of course, by 1939 has aged, it's out of touch with cutting-edge innovations that are going on in europe and elsewhere, and suddenly we're faced with this problem of a military complex in europe, and we can't, we don't have anything to compete with them. in the book i mention that army chief of staff douglas mcarthur at one point testified before congress in 1935 pleading for enough money so that his army would have enough bullets for 100,000 soldiers. we're not talking about stealth bombers or complex weapons here,

we're talking literally about just even enough bullets to man 100,000 army. and even -- and i can certainly understand if you're not for a strong military american presence overseas which we don't necessarily need, but i do think that a strong defense of america wards off problems. and in the 1930s we certainly didn't have that, and germany was aware of that and so was japan. and that leads to a lot of problems. well, the war, of course, comes along to the united states in late 1941 and suddenly factories have to be converted. what are you going to do? well, overnight, for one thing, they restricted products to consumers. overnight in january 1942 you could not pie tire for your -- buy tires for your car. if your tires had been getting a little aged and you thought,